'I do not understand you, Captain Guebhard,' replied the latter.
'You will understand this, that I heard your names—yours and Margarita's—bandied about in the common cafane of the next village.'
Cecil coloured with anger, but said quietly: 'We are not accountable for the gossip of the vulgar or the ignorant.'
'It is a pity, however, to compromise a young lady by your attentions, Herr Lieutenant.'
'Who do you mean?' asked Cecil, angrily.
'Who but Margarita Palenka?' replied Guebhard, suavely, but decidedly, emitting great circles of smoke from his lips.
'Compromise her?'
'I have said so, Herr.'
'With whom?' asked Cecil, endeavouring to suppress his annoyance; 'her mother or—you? I am here, like yourself, as a guest, and I do not recognise your right, Captain Guebhard, either to advise me, or suggest to me any line of conduct.'
'If I attempted to do so, it would be as your friend, and still more as the friend of Count Palenka's sister.'