"I would have it concern me—if you wish."
"Dear sir," she said very coolly, "I wish nothing of the kind."
"You do not trust me."
"Why, yes, as I trust every man—except a red one."
"Yet, I tell you that all that animates me is a desire to render you a comrade's service——"
"And I thank you, Mr. Loskiel, because, like other men, you mean it generously and well. Yet, you are an officer in the corps d'élite; and you would be ashamed to have the humblest bugler in your regiment see you with such a one as I."
She broke another morsel from her bread:
"You dare not cross a camp-parade beside me. At least the plaything of an officer should walk in silk, whatever clothes a soldier's trull. Sir, do you suppose I do not know?"
She looked up at the stars, and then quietly at me.
"The open comradeship of any man with me but marks us both. Only his taste is criticized, not his morals. But the world's judgment leaves me nothing to cover me except the silk or rags I chance to wear. And if I am brave and fine it would be said of me, 'The hussy's gown is brave and fine!' And if I go in tatters, 'What slattern have we here, flaunting her boldness in the very sun?' So a comradeship with any man is all one to me. And I go my way, neither a burden nor a plaything, a scandal only to myself, involving no man high or low save where their advances wrong us both in the world's eyes—as did those of your friend, yonder by a dead fire asleep."