“Milady has told me, M. Victor, that you are a first-rate carver of ivories. How is it that you have never let me benefit by your art?” “My things are not worth a sou,” muttered Cecil hurriedly. “You do them great injustice, and yourself also,” said the grande dame, more coldly than she had before spoken. “Your carvings are singularly perfect, and should bring you considerable returns.” “Why have you never shown them to me at least?” pursued Ben Arsli--“why not have given me my option?” The blood flushed Cecil's face again; he turned to the Princess. “I withheld them, madame, not because he would have underpriced, but overpriced them. He rates a trifling act of mine, of long ago, so unduly.” She bent her head in silence; yet a more graceful comprehension of his motive she could not have given than her glance alone gave. Ben Arsli stroked his great beard; more moved than his Moslem dignity would show. “Always so!” he muttered, “always so! My son, in some life before this, was not generosity your ruin?” “Milady was about to purchase the lamp?” asked Cecil, avoiding the question. “Her Highness will not find anything like it in all Algiers.” The lamp was taken down, and the conversation turned from himself. “May I bear it to your carriage, madame?” he asked, as she moved to leave, having made it her own, while her footman carried out the smaller articles she had bought to the equipage. She bowed in silence; she was very exclusive, she was not wholly satisfied with herself for having conversed thus with a Chasseur d'Afrique in a Moor's bazaar. Still, she vaguely felt pity for this man; she equally vaguely desired to serve him. “Wait, M. Victor!” she said, as he closed the door of her carriage. “I accepted your chessmen last night, but you are very certain that it is impossible I can retain them on such terms.” A shadow darkened his face. “Let your dogs break them then, madame. They shall not come back to me.” “You mistake--I did not mean that I would send them back. I simply desire to offer you some equivalent for them. There must be something that you wish for?--something which would be acceptable to you in the life you lead?” “I have already named the only thing I desire.” He had been solicitous to remember and sustain the enormous difference in their social degrees; but at the offer of her gifts, of her patronage, of her recompense, the pride of his old life rose up to meet her own. “To be forgotten? A sad wish! Nay, surely life in a regiment of Africa cannot be so cloudless that it can create in you no other?” “It is not. I have another.” “Then tell it to me; it shall be gratified.” “It is to enjoy a luxury long ago lost forever. It is--to be allowed to give the slight courtesy of a gentleman without being tendered the wage of a servant.” She understood him; she was moved, too, by the inflexion of his voice. She was not so cold, not so negligent, as the world called her.