And when he had passed from the exercising-ground to the campaign, the Army had found him one of the most splendid of its many splendid soldiers; and in the daily folios there was no page of achievements, of exploits, of services, of dangers, that showed a more brilliant array of military deserts than his. Yet, for many years, he had been passed by unnoticed. He had now not even the cross on his chest, and he had only slowly and with infinite difficulty been promoted so far as he stood now--a Corporal in the Chasseurs d'Afrique--a step only just accorded him because wounds innumerable and distinctions without number in countless skirmishes had made it impossible to cast him wholly aside any longer. The cause lay in the implacable enmity of one man--his Chief. Far-sundered as they were by position, and rarely as they could come into actual contact, that merciless weight of animosity, from the great man to his soldier had lain on the other like iron, and clogged him from all advancement. His thoughts were of it now. Only to-day, at an inspection, the accidentally broken saddle-girth of a boy-conscript had furnished pretext for a furious reprimand, a volley of insolent opprobrium hurled at himself, under which he had had to sit mute in his saddle, with no other sign that he was human beneath the outrage than the blood that would, despite himself, flush the pale bronze of his forehead. His thoughts were on it now. “There are many losses that are bitter enough,” he mused; “but there is not one so bitter as the loss of the right to resent!” A whirlwind of laughter, so loud that it drowned the music of the shrill violins and thundering drums, echoed through the rooms and shook him from his reverie. “They are bons enfants,” he thought, with a half smile, as he listened; “they are more honest in their mirth, as in their wrath, than we ever were in that old world of mine.” Amid the shouts, the crash, the tumult, the gay, ringing voice of Cigarette rose distinct. She had apparently paused in her dancing to exchange one of those passes of arms which were her specialty, in the Sabir that she, a child of the regiments of Africa, had known as her mother tongue. “You call him a misanthrope?” she cried disdainfully. “And you have been drinking at his expense, you rascal?” The grumbled assent of the accused was inaudible. “Ingrate!” pursued the scornful, triumphant voice of the Vivandiere; “you would pawn your mother's grave-clothes! You would eat your children, en fricassee! You would sell your father's bones for a draught of brandy!” The screams of mirth redoubled; Cigarette's style of withering eloquence was suited to all her auditors' tastes, and under the chorus of laughs at his cost, her infuriated adversary plucked up courage and roared forth a defiance. “White hands and a brunette's face are fine things for a soldier. He kills women--he kills women with his lady's grace!”