It was the work of a moment for Eugène to shift the side-saddle from Le Cid to Vivandière. The general had already mounted, and was gazing off toward the porte Dauphine, with his nose in the air, as if he scented breakfast from afar. "She is very beautiful, monsieur, your Vivandière, and you are very good," said Mademoiselle Tournadour, as the chasseur tightened the girth, after her boot had touched his hand, and she was in the saddle. "She is very fortunate, mademoiselle," answered Eugène, curiously embarrassed for one so skilled in compliment. "If she wins, I shall feel that she owes the race to this good omen." "The race?" said the girl. "The Officers' Steeple Chase at Auteuil, on Sunday." "You ride her yourself?" There was a strange little note of more than casual interest in the question, and Eugène looked up suddenly. For the second time their eyes met. "Yes," he answered. "Why?" "Why? But nothing, monsieur, except, perhaps, to wish you bonne chance." She touched Vivandière with her heel. "Adieu, monsieur," she added, "and a thousand thanks!" Eugène bowed. "For nothing," he said, "and au revoir, mademoiselle!" Then he watched them out of sight, with his arm through Le Cid's bridle-rein, and his trim English saddle sprawling at his feet. There was something delightfully ingenuous, to Eugène's way of thinking, in Vieux César's method of unloading the burden of his embarrassment on the shoulders of the first young lieutenant who crossed his path, and then riding off serenely to breakfast, leaving the other, as it were, to gather up and disentangle the loose ends of the situation. He was half amused, half annoyed that his offer of Vivandière had not been taken less as a matter of course; but, in view of the circumstances, he attended with fairly good grace to the details of stabling Le Cid, and arranging to send for his saddle, and then struck out at a swinging gait for the footpath to La Muette. For all of which there was a sufficient reason in the person of Mademoiselle Tournadour.