Moiseney, "could you not speak to the Minister of War about adopting the Larinski musket ?" "Are you your country's enemy ?" he asked.

"Do you wish its destruction?
Have you sworn that after Alsace we must lose Champagne ?" "I am perfectly sure," she replied, mounting on her high horse, "that the Larinski musket is a _chef-d'oeuvre_, and I would pledge my life that he who invented it is a man of genius." "If you would pledge your word of honour to that, mademoiselle," he replied, making her a profound bow, "you may well feel assured that the French Government would not hesitate a moment." Mlle.

Moriaz took no part in this conversation.

Her face slightly contracted, buried in her thoughts as in a solitude inaccessible to earthly sounds, her cheek resting in the palm of her left hand, she held in her right hand a paper-cutter, and she kept pricking the point into one of the grooves of the table on which her elbow rested, while her half-closed eyes were fixed on a knot of the mahogany.

She saw in this knot the Isthmus of Panama, San Francisco, the angelic countenance of the beautiful Polish woman who had given birth to Count Abel Larinski; she saw there also fields of snow, ambuscades, retreats more glorious than victories, and, beyond all else, the bursting of a gun and of a man's heart.
She arose, and saluted her father without a word.