“Angry words pass, sometimes, but all present interfere at once.  The honour of the regiment is the first point with us all.  If men want to quarrel, there are plenty of French officers who would be quite ready to oblige them, but a quarrel among ourselves would be regarded as discreditable to the corps.  Consequently, a dispute is always stopped before it reaches a dangerous point, and if it goes further than usual, the parties are sent for by the colonel in the morning, both get heavily wigged, and the colonel insists upon the matter being dropped, altogether.  As the blood has had time to cool, both are always ready to obey his orders, especially as they know that he would report them at once to the general, if the matter were carried further.”

“Well, I shall certainly not be likely to get into a quarrel over wine,” Desmond said, “nor indeed, in any other way, unless I am absolutely forced into it.  As to adventures such as you speak of, I am still less likely to be concerned in them.  I hope that, when we are ordered on service, I shall have a full share of adventures such as may become a soldier.”

O’Neil smiled.  “Time will show,” he said.  “Adventures come without being sought, and you may find yourself in the thick of one, before you have an idea of what you are doing.  But mind, if you do get into any adventure and need assistance, you are bound to let us help you.  That is the compact we made, two months ago.  We agreed to stand by each other, to be good comrades, to share our last sous, and naturally to give mutual aid under all and every circumstance.”

Desmond nodded.

“At any rate, O’Neil, adventures cannot be so common as you represent, since neither of you, so far, has called upon me for aid or assistance.”

“Have you heard the last piece of court scandal, Kennedy?” O’Sullivan asked, as the three friends sat down to breakfast together, a few days later.

“No; what is it?”

“Well, it is said that a certain damsel—­her name is, at present, a secret—­has disappeared.”

“There is nothing very strange about that,” O’Neil laughed.  “Damsels do occasionally disappear.  Sometimes they have taken their fate into their own hands, and gone off with someone they like better than the man their father has chosen for them; sometimes, again, they are popped into a convent for contumacy.  Well, go on, O’Sullivan, that cannot be all.”

“Well, it is all that seems to be certain.  You know that I went with the colonel, last night, to a ball at the Hotel de Rohan, and nothing else was talked about.  Several there returned from Versailles in the afternoon, and came back full of it.  All sorts of versions are current.  That she is a rich heiress goes without saying.  If she had not been, her disappearance would have excited no attention whatever.  So we may take it that she is an heiress of noble family.  Some say that her father had chosen, as her husband, a man she disliked