"My poor child, have you been so buffeted about that you have never been treated with commonest courtesy ?" "Whew!" cried the little lady, blowing a puff of smoke down on him.
"None of your pity for me! Buffeted about?
Do you suppose anybody ever did anything with me that I didn't choose?
If you had as much power as I have in the army, Chateauroy would not send for you to sell your toys like a peddler.

You are a slave! I am a sovereign!" With which she tossed back her graceful, spirited head, as though the gold band of her cap were the gold band of a diadem.

She was very proud of her station in the Army of Africa, and glorified her privileges with all a child's vanity.
He listened, amused with her boastful supremacy; but the last words touched him with a certain pang just in that moment.

He felt like a slave--a slave who must obey his tyrant, or go out and die like a dog.
"Well, yes," he said slowly; "I am a slave, I fear.

I wish a Bedouin flissa would cut my thralls in two." He spoke jestingly, but there was a tinge of sadness in the words that touched Cigarette's changeful temper to contrition, and filled her with the same compassion and wonder at him that she had felt when the ivory wreaths and crucifixes had lain in her hands.