She here cast herself down in front of him, and, with her elbows on the sand, and her chin on her hands, watched him with all the frank curiosity and unmoved nonchalance imaginable, as she launched the question point-blank.

“Before!” he said slowly.  “Well—­a fool.”

“You belonged in the majority, then!” said Cigarette, with a piquance made a thousand times more piquant by the camp slang she spoke in.  “You should not have had to come into the ranks, mon ami; majorities—­specially that majority—­have very smooth sailing generally!”

He looked at her more closely, though she wearied him.

“Where have you got your ironies, Cigarette?  You are so young.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“Bah! one is never young, and always young in camps.  Young?  Pardieu!  When I was four I could swear like a grenadier, plunder like a prefet, lie like a priest, and drink like a bohemian.”

Yet—­with all that—­and it was the truth, the brow was so open under the close rings of the curls, the skin so clear under the sun-tan, the mouth so rich and so arch in its youth!

“Why did you come into the service?” she went on, before he had a chance to answer her.  “You were born in the Noblesse—­bah!  I know an aristocrat at a glance!  Now many of those aristocrats come; shoals of them; but it is always for something.  They all come for something; most of them have been ruined by the lionnes, a hundred million of francs gone in a quarter!  Ah, bah! what blind bats the best of you are!  They have gambled, or bet, or got into hot water, or fought too many duels or caused a court scandal, or something; all the aristocrats that come to Africa are ruined.  What ruined you, M. l’Aristocrat?”

“Aristocrat?  I am none.  I am a Corporal of the Chasseurs.”

“Diable!  I have known a Duke a Corporal!  What ruined you?”

“What ruins most men, I imagine—­folly.”

“Folly, sure enough!” retorted Cigarette, with scornful acquiescence.  She had no patience with him.  He danced so deliciously, he looked so superb, and he would give her nothing but these absent answers.  “Wisdom don’t bring men who look as you look into the ranks of the volunteers for Africa.  Besides, you are too handsome to be a sage!”

He laughed a little.

“I never was one, that’s certain.  And you are too pretty to be a cynic.”

“A what?” She did not know the word.  “Is that a good cigar you have?  Give me one.  Do women smoke in your old country?”

“Oh, yes—­many of them.”

“Where is it, then?”

“I have no country—­now.”

“But the one you had?”

“I have forgotten I ever had one.”

“Did it treat you ill, then?”

“Not at all.”

“Had you anything you cared for in it?”

“Well—­yes.”

“What was it?  A woman?”

“No—­a horse.”

He stooped his head a little as he said it, and traced more figures slowly in the sand.