Cigarette was rightly proud of her immunity from the weakness of her sex; she had neither meanness nor selfishness.

The Marshal listened gravely, the groups around him smilingly.  If it had been any other than the Little One, it would have been very different; as it was, all France and all Algeria knew Cigarette.

“What may be the name of this man whom you praise so greatly, my pretty one?” he asked her.

“That I cannot tell, M. le Marshal.  All I know is he calls himself here Louis Victor.”

“Ah!  I have heard much of him.  A fine soldier, but—­”

“A fine soldier without a ‘but,’” interrupted Cigarette, with rebellious indifference to the rank of the great man she corrected, “unless you add, ‘but never done justice by his Chief.’”

As she spoke, her eyes for the first time glanced over the various personages who were mingled among the staff of the Marshal, his invited guests for the review upon the plains.  The color burned more duskily in her cheek, her eyes glittered with hate; she could have bitten her little, frank, witty tongue through and through for having spoken the name of that Chasseur who was yonder, out of earshot, where the lance-heads of his squadrons glistened against the blue skies.  She saw a face which, though seen but once before, she knew instantly again—­the face of “Milady.”  And she saw it change color, and lose its beautiful hue, and grow grave and troubled as the last words passed between herself and the French Marshal.

“Ah! can she feel?” wondered Cigarette, who, with a common error of such vehement young democrats as herself, always thought that hearts never ached in the Patrician Order, and thought so still when she saw the listless, proud tranquility return, not again to be altered, over the perfect features that she watched with so much violent, instinctive hate.  “Did she heed his name, or did she not?  What are their faces in that Order?  Only alabaster masks!” mused the child.  And her heart sank, and bitterness mingled with her joy, and the soul that had a moment before been so full of all pure and noble emotion, all high and patriotic and idealic thought, was dulled and soiled and clogged with baser passions.  So ever do unworthy things drag the loftier nature earthward.

She scarcely heard the Marshal’s voice as it addressed her with a kindly indulgence, as to a valued soldier and a spoiled pet in one.

“Have no fear, Little One.  Victor’s claims are not forgotten, though we may await our own time to investigate and reward them.  No one ever served the Empire and remained unrewarded.  For yourself, wear your Cross proudly.  It glitters above not only the bravest, but the most generous, heart in the service.”