The Firefly of France

cously, sent the company officials and the family of the young officer of reserves ashore. The plank was lowered; between the ship and the looming pi

ocations of teamster, waiter, fruit vender, and the like, and go, unforced, to wear the gray-green coats of Italy, the short feathers of

bably, which I had heard a newsboy crying along the dock a little earlier, and had bribed a steward to secure. Moon and stars were l

l rumor was exploited to the effect that Franz von Blenheim, one of the star secret agents of the German Empire, was at present incognito at Washington, having spent the past month in putting his finger

shing degrees of the scare-head type. Then came the picture, with a mien attractively debonair, a pleasantly smiling mou

Marquis of Beuil and Santenay, and Duke of Raincy-la-Tour. This young nobleman, head of a family that has played its part in French history since the days of the North

fame, and it was to the French Flying Corps that he was attached when hostilities began. Here he distinguished himself from the first by his coolness, his extraordinary resource, and his utter contempt for danger, and became one of the idols of the French army and a proverb for success and audacity,

e errand and to have returned in safety as far as the French lines. Here, however, we enter the realm of conjecture. The duke has disappeared; the plans he bore have never reached the generalissimo; and rumor persistently declares that at some point upon his return journey he was intercepted

ather and grandfather toward the republic having been hostile in the extreme. It is believed that this fact may have its significan

ur looked back at me with cool, clear eyes, smiling half aloofly, a little

th bombs. They probably got you, poor chap, and you're lying buried somewhere while the gossips make a

on," said a low

nder heaven she could want. I was not much pleased to tell the truth; a goddess shouldn't step f

just a moment? I haven't seen one since morning; th

smiled; but she was frightened. I could read it in

that could upset her? I was nonplussed, b

. "Pray keep it." Lifting my ca

rs touche

. There was a half-imperious, half-

tar

aid blankly, "tha

is most astonishing young woman. "Don't you see tha

own up, a girl whose brother and cousins I had probably known at college, a girl that I might have met at a friend's dinner or at the opera or on a country-club porch if I had had my luck with me. Now what was I to think her-an escaped lunatic o

saw the girl's face shining whitely in the deck light. Her black lashes fringed her cheeks as her head bent back

myself saying, "that

for self-control, b

reed; "I am a

was correct, but reluctant. How I w

did not intend to.

e was murmuring, "that w

olved to keep out of a queer business and then, because a girl looked bothered, p

e," I responde

tightened on the railing. "And if I ask wit

the thing through now. "That doesn't matter at a

re less anxious, went to my head a little, I suppose. Oh, yes, she was lovely. Of course that was a factor. If she had been past h

t about me; it is not even true. But if it stays aboard the ship,-if some one sees

ing! Yet such was the spell of her eyes, her voice, her ne

at might lead them to-to guess. But no one will think of you, nobody will be watching you;

e envied me my impassivity. I bowed. "I shall be d

as she heard me promise it, and her red

gratitude. "I thought-I knew you

, Kamchatka, Land's End-anywhere except on this ship. As I had told the agent of the Phillipson Rifles, I am no boy. One can scarcely

ho, like me, consented to act blindfold would probably repent their blindness in sackcloth and ashes before long. But what

traps a bronze paper-weight as heavy as lead. Wrapping the mysterious sheet about it, I

. The reservists down below were singing "Va fuori, o stranier!" I dropped my package overboard, watched it vanish, and turned t