"I want to belong to both sides of the Sagalac, I want both sides to belong to each other so that either side shall not be my side or your side, or--" "Or Monsieur Felix Marchand's side," she interrupted meaningly.
"Oh, he's on the outside!" snapped the fighter, with a hardening mouth.
She did not reply at once, but put her hat on, and tied the ribbons loosely under her chin, looking thoughtfully into the distance.
"Is that the Western slang for saying he belongs nowhere ?" she asked.
"Nowhere here," he answered with a grim twist to the corner of his mouth, his eyes half-closing with sulky meaning.

"Won't you sit down ?" he added quickly, in a more sprightly tone, for he saw she was about to move on.

He motioned towards a log lying beside the path and kicked some branches out of the way.
After slight hesitation she sat down, burying her shoes in the fallen leaves.
"You don't like Felix Marchand ?" she remarked presently.
"No.

Do you ?" She met his eyes squarely--so squarely that his own rather lost their courage, and he blinked more quickly than is needed with a healthy eye.
He had been audacious, but he had not surprised the garrison.
"I have no deep reason for liking or disliking him, and you have," she answered firmly; yet her colour rose slightly, and he thought he had never seen skin that looked so like velvet-creamy, pink velvet.
"You seemed to think differently at Carillon not long ago," he returned.
"That was an accident," she answered calmly.

"He was drunk, and that is for forgetting--always." "Always! Have you seen many men drunk ?" he asked quickly.