She was a dilettante in handsome men; she nodded her head now to where, some yards off, at another of the camp-fires, stood, with some officers of the regiment, one of the tourists; a very tall, very fair man, with a gallant bearing, and a tawny beard that glittered to gold in the light of the flames.

Cecil’s glance followed Cigarette’s.  With a great cry he sprang to his feet and stood entranced, gazing at the stranger.  She saw the startled amaze, the longing love, the agony of recognition, in his eyes; she saw the impulse in him to spring forward, and the shuddering effort with which the impulse was controlled.  He turned to her almost fiercely.

“He must not see me!  Keep him away—­away, for God’s sake!”

He could not have leave his men; he was fettered there where his squadron was camped.  He went as far as he could from the flame-light into the shadow, and thrust himself among the tethered horses.  Cigarette asked nothing; comprehended at a glance with all the tact of her nation; and sauntered forward to meet the officers of the regiment as they came up to the picket-fire with the yellow-haired English stranger.  She knew how charming a picture there, with her hands lightly resting on her hips, and her bright face danced on by the ruddy fire-glow, she made; she knew she could hold thus the attention of a whole brigade.  The eyes of the stranger lighted on her, and his voice laughed in mellow music to his companions and ciceroni.

“Your intendance is perfect; your ambulance is perfect; your camp-cookery is perfect, messieurs; and here you have even perfect beauty, too!  Truly, campaigning must be pleasant work in Algeria!”

Then he turned to her with compliments frank and gay, and full of a debonair grace that made her doubt he could be of Albion.

Retort was always ready to her; and she kept the circle of officers in full laughter round the fire with a shower of repartee that would have made her fortune on the stage.  And every now and then her glance wandered to the shadow where the horses were tethered.

Bah! why was she always doing him service?  She could not have told.

Still she went on—­and did it.

It was a fantastic picture by the bright scarlet light of the camp-fire, with the Little One in her full glory of mirth and mischief, and her circle of officers laughing on her with admiring eyes; nearest her the towering height of the English stranger, with the gleam of the flame in the waves of his leonine beard.

From the darkness, where the scores of gray horses were tethered, Cecil’s eyes were riveted on it.  There were none near to see him; had there been, they would have seen an agony in his eyes that no physical misery, no torture of the battlefield, had brought there.  His face was bloodless, and his gaze strained through the gleam on to the fire-lit group with a passionate intensity of yearning—­he was well used to pain, well used to self-control, well used to self-restraint, but for the first time in his exile the bitterness of a struggle almost vanquished him.  All the old love of his youth went out to this man, so near to him, yet so hopelessly severed from him; looking on the face of his friend, a violence of longing shook him.  “O God, if I were dead!” he thought, “they might know then——­”