Page:Christopher Wren--the wages of virtue.djvu/243

Rh A bitter sneer was frozen on Rivoli's white face.

"Galamatias!" he laughed contemptuously, but the laugh rang a little uncertain.

Madame la Cantinière was charmed. She felt she was falling in love with ce brave Jean Boule au grand galop. This was a far finer man, and a far more suitable husband for a hard-working Cantinière than that lump of a Rivoli, with his pockets always pleine de vide and his mouth always full of langue vert. A trifle on the elderly side perhaps, but aristocrat au bout des ongles. Yes, decidedly grey as to the hair, but then, how nice to be an old man's darling!—and Madame simpered, bridled and tried to blush.

"Speak up thou, Rivoli," she cried sharply. "Do not stand there like a blanc bec before a Sergeant-Major. Speak, bécasse—or speak not again to me."

The Neapolitan darted a glance of hatred at her.

"Peace, fat sow," he hissed, and added unwisely—"You wag your beard too much."

In that moment vanished for ever all possibility of Madame's trying an Italian husband. "Sow" may be a term of endearment, but no gentleman alludes to beards in the presence of a lady whose chin does not betray her sex.

Turning to his enemy, Rivoli struck an attitude and pointed to the door.

"Go, dig your grave ci-devant," he said portentously, "and I will kill you beside it, within the week."

"Thanks," replied the Englishman, and invited his friends to join him in a litre.…

The barracks of the First Battalion of the Foreign Legion hummed and buzzed that night, from end to end, in a ferment of excitement over the two tre-