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"They send 'em here in cans," explained Smith, "pale, with sour water on 'em, no more like real, ma'am, than a cigarette's like a smoke." The men with pipes chuckled their appreciation of the comparison. Horace Bentley, with a fresh cigarette which he had taken out of a silver case in his fingers, turned it, quizzically smiling as he struck a match.
The tranquil, unmoved, serious words stilled the vehement passion she rebuked with a strange and irresistible power; under her gaze the savage lust in Cigarette's eyes died out, and their lids drooped over them; the dusky, scarlet color failed from her cheeks; for the first time in her life she felt humiliated, vanquished, awed.
This forcible recrimination is in high relish in the Caserne; the screams of mirth redoubled. Barbe-Grise was a redoubtable authority whom the wildest dare-devil in his brigade dared not contradict, and he was getting the worst of it under the lash of Cigarette's tongue, to the infinite glee of the whole ballroom. "Dame! his hands cannot work as mine can!" growled her opponent.
You spoke like a brave and a just friend to him to-day; are you willing to act as such to-night? 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.
"What, in Heaven's name, can she want?" "Only one thing!" "And that is " "To have loved." Wherewith he turned into the Greco. He had found the one flaw and it was still there. What he missed in her was still wanting. "V'la ce que c'est la gloire au grabat!" The contemptuous sentence was crushed through Cigarette's tight-pressed, bright-red lips, with an irony sadder than tears.
It was not lightly that Cigarette's words were ever received when she spoke as she spoke now; nor was it impossible that she now brought to them that which would brook neither delay nor trifling. She waited patiently; all the iron discipline of military life had never bound her gay and lawless spirit down; but now she was singularly still and mute.
"Poor Cigarette," she added, descending to prose again, and tapping Cigarette's nose with the butt of her riding-crop. "How he did heave and pant when he caught up with us! And Sunbeam never turned a hair!" "What made you call him Sunbeam?" Stephen asked, with an effort to appear undisturbed, as he watched her stroking the glossy black neck.
"Annie and the shopman settled most of the furniture between them. Perhaps it's just as well. I was never very good at the practical details of life.... Cigarette's out! Have you any more matches?" "Horribly depressed you are!" I said. "There's to-morrow. Well, well...."
The screams of mirth redoubled; Cigarette's style of withering eloquence was suited to all her auditors' tastes, and under the chorus of laughs at his cost, her infuriated adversary plucked up courage and roared forth a defiance. "White hands and a brunette's face are fine things for a soldier. He kills women he kills women with his lady's grace!"
Yes; what about her?... What!" "Yes," said the Nurse. "A girl seven pounds." "My Gawd! Well, what do you think of that! Excuse me a moment; my cigarette's set fire to the sheet. All right go ahead." "She's taking it pretty hard, and I I thought you might help her. She she " "How much do you want?" said Rose, a trifle coldly.
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