"Will nothing persuade you, little fool?" she cried, "that that Italian beast no more loves you than--than Jean Boule loves me--that he is playing with you, that he is battening on you, and that, the moment the fat Canteen woman accepts him, he will marry her and you will see him no more? Why should Jean Boule lie to you? Why should the American? Why should I?--Ask any Legionary in Sidi."
Carmelita clenched her little fist and appeared to be about to strike the Russian girl.
"Stop!" continued Olga, and pointed to the uniform which lay folded on the chair. "See! Prove your courage and prove us all liars if you can. Put on that uniform, disguise yourself, and go to the Canteen any night in the week. If your Rivoli is not there behind the bar, hand-in-glove with Madame, turn me into the street--or leave me at the mercy of your Rivoli. There now...."
"I will," said Carmelita, and then screamed and laughed, laughed and screamed, as her overwrought nerves and brain gave way in a fit of hysterics.
When she recovered, Olga Kyrilovitch discovered that the seed which she had sown had taken root, and that it was Carmelita's unalterable intention to pay a visit to the Canteen on the very next evening.
"For my Luigi's own sake I will spy upon him," she said, "and to prove all his vile accusers wrong. When I have done it I will confess to him with tears and throw myself at his feet. He shall do as he likes with me.... But he will understand that it was only to disprove these lies that I did it, and not because I for one moment doubted him."
But doubt him Carmelita did. As soon as her decision was taken and announced, she allowed Olga to talk on as she pleased, and insensibly came to realise that at the bottom of her heart she knew John Bull to be incapable of deceiving her. Why should he? Why should all the Legionaries, except Rivoli's own hirelings, take up the same attitude towards him? Why should there be no man to speak well of him save such men as Borges, Hirsch, Bauer, Malvin, and the others, all of whom carried their vileness in their faces? As her doubts and fears increased, so did her wrath and excitement, until she strode up and down the little room like a caged pantheress, and Olga feared for her sanity and her own safety. And then again, Love would triumph, and she would beat her breast and wildly reproach herself for her lack of faith, and overwhelm Olga with a deluge of vituperation and accusation.
At length came the relief of quiet weeping, and, having whispered to Olga her Great Secret, or rather her hopes of having one to tell, she sobbed herself to sleep on the girl's shoulder, to dream of the most wonderful of bambinos.
Meanwhile, John Bull spent one of the wretchedest evenings of a wretched life. Returning to his chambrée to find himself hailed and acclaimed "hero," he commenced at once, with his usual uncompromising directness and simplicity, to inform all and sundry, who mentioned the subject, that there would be no duel. It hurt him most of all to see the face of his friend Rupert fall and harden, as he informed him that he could not fight Rivoli after all. On his explaining the position to him, Reginald Rupert, decidedly shocked, remarked--
"Your business, of course," and privately wondered whether les beaux yeux of Carmelita, or of Olga, had shed the light in which his friend had come to see things so differently. Surely, Carmelita's best friend would be the person who saved her from Rivoli; and, if it were really Olga whom Bull were considering, there were more ways of killing a cat than choking it with melted butter. Anyhow, he didn't envy John Bull, nor yet the weaker vessels of the Seventh Company. What would John Bull do, if, on hearing of his change of mind, Rivoli simply took him and put him across his knee? Would his promise to Carmelita sustain him through that or similar indignities? After all, a challenge is a challenge; and some people would consider that the prior engagement to Rivoli could not in honour be cancelled afterwards by an engagement with Carmelita or anybody else.