“Wait!  Hear me a little while, before you rush on in this headlong and foolish speech,” interrupted her auditor, who had in a moment’s rapid thought decided on her course with this strange, wayward nature.  “You err in the construction you have placed on the words, whatever they were, which you heard.  The gentleman—­he is a gentleman—­whom you speak of bears me no love.  We are almost strangers.  But by a strange chain of circumstances he is connected with my family; he once had great friendship with my brother; for reasons that I do not know, but which are imperative with him, he desires to keep his identity unsuspected by everyone; an accident alone revealed it to me, and I have promised him not to divulge it.  You understand?”

Cigarette gave an affirmative gesture.  Her eyes were fastened suddenly, yet with a deep, bright glow in them, upon her companion; she was beginning to see her way through his secret—­a secret she was too intrinsically loyal even now to dream of betraying.

“You spoke very nobly for him to-day.  You have the fealty of one brave character to another, I am sure!” pursued Venetia Corona, purposely avoiding all hints of any warmer feeling on her listener’s part, since she saw how tenacious the girl was of any confession of it.  “You would do him service if you could, I fancy.  Am I right?”

“Oh, yes!” answered Cigarette, with an over-assumption of carelessness.  “He is bon zig; we always help each other.  Besides, he is very good to my men.  What is it you want of me?”

“To preserve secrecy on what I have told you for his sake; and to give him a message from me.”

Cigarette laughed scornfully; she was furious with herself for standing obediently like a chidden child to hear this patrician’s bidding, and to do her will.  And yet, try how she would, she could not shake off the spell under which those grave, sweet, lustrous eyes of command held her.

“Pardieu, Milady!  Do you think I babble like any young drunk with his first measure of wine?  As for your message, you had better let him come and hear what you have to say; I cannot promise to remember it!”

“Your answer is reckless; I want a serious one.  You spoke like a brave and a just friend to him to-day; are you willing to act as such to-night?  You have come here strangely, rudely, without pretext or apology; but I think better of you than you would allow me to do, if I judged only from the surface.  I believe that you have loyalty, as I know that you have courage.”

Cigarette set her teeth hard.

“What of that?”

“This of it.  That one who has them will never cherish malice unjustifiably, or fail to fulfill a trust.”

Cigarette’s clear, brown skin grew very red.

“That is true,” she muttered reluctantly.  Her better nature was growing uppermost, though she strove hard to keep the evil one predominant.

“Then you will cease to feel hatred toward me for so senseless a reason as that I belong to an aristocracy that offends you; and you will remain silent on what I tell you concerning the one whom you know as Louis Victor?”