"While you may, indeed, my Carmelita," he murmured, and produced the first of his brilliant ideas. "While you may. Do not think I reproach you, Carmelita, for you have acted but in accordance with the dictates of your warm young heart in taking in this girl. How were you to know that this would involve me in a duel to the death with the finest shot in the Nineteenth Division, the most famous marksman in the army of Africa?"
"What?" gasped Carmelita.
"What I say, my poor girl," was the reply, uttered with calm dignity. "Your English friend, this Jean Boule, who fears to meet me face to face, and man to man, with Nature's weapons, has forced a quarrel on me over this Russian girl. He challenged me in the Canteen this night, and I, who could break him like a dried stick, must stand up to be shot by him, like a dog.... I do not blame you, Carmelita. How were you to know?..."
Carmelita suddenly sat down.
"I do not understand," she whispered and sat agape.
"The Englishman owns this girl...."
"He brought her here," Carmelita interrupted, nodding her head.
"Ha! I guessed it.... Yes, he owns her, and when I discovered the shameless puttana's sex he drew a pistol on me, an innocent, unarmed man.... Did he tell you it was I who found the shameful hussy out? What could I do against him empty-handed? ... And now I must fight him--and he can put a bullet where he will.... So kiss me, while you may, Carmelita."
With a low cry the girl sprang into his arms.
"My love! My love! My husband!" she wailed, and Luigi hoped that she would release her clasp from about his neck in time for him to avoid suffocation.... Curse all women--they were the cause of nine-tenths of the sorrows of mankind. But one could not do without them.... Suddenly Carmelita started back, and clapped her hands with a cry of glee. "The Holy Virgin be praised! I have it! I have it! Unless Légionnaire Jean Boule confesses his fault and begs my Luigi's pardon--out into the gutter goes his Russian mistress," and Carmelita pirouetted with joy.... Thank God! Thank God! Here was a solution, and she embraced her lover again and again. Luigi's face was wreathed in smiles. Excellente! That would do the trick admirably, and the thrice-accursed, and ten-times-too-clever English aristocratico should publicly apologise, if he wished to save his mistress.... Yes, that would be very much pleasanter than a mere stab-in-the-back revenge, as well as safer. There is always some slight risk, even in Sidi-bel-Abbès, about arranging a murder, and blackmail is always unpleasant--for the blackmailed. Ho-ho! Ho-ho! Only to think of the cold and haughty Englishman publicly apologising and begging Luigi, of his mercifulness, to cancel the duel. Corpo di Bacco, he should do it on his knees. "Rivoli the Coward," forsooth, and what of "Jean Boule the Coward," after this? ... Yes; Jean Boule defeated, the Russian girl denounced when clear of Carmelita's Café, if Madame proved unkind, and denounced in the Café together with Carmelita if Madame accepted him. He himself need not appear personally in the matter at all. And when Carmelita was jailed or deported, and the Russian girl sent to Biribi, or turned into a figlia del reggimento, the Englishman should still get it in the back one dark night--and Signor Luigi Rivoli would wax fat behind Madame's bar, until his five years' service was completed and he could live happy ever after, upon the earnings of Madame....