“Just the sight of a man who looked as though he had some—oh, some spunk in him—was enough for me,” says she. “I wouldn’t have turned you over to the police, my dear, not if you had been a murderer. And it was a chance to take down that conceited Prussian muff—would you believe that a man who looks so splendid could have ice and vinegar in his veins?”

“Who is he?” I asked.

“Otto? Oh, one of these Germans making the Grand Tour in reverse. Sometimes I think there’s a bit of the devil in him, but he keeps it well hid; he behaves so properly because like all foreigners he likes to impress the English. Tonight, just to try and breathe some life into that collection of prigs, I offered to show them a Spanish dance—you would have thought I’d said something indecent. They didn’t even say, ‘Oh, my dear!’ Just turned their heads to one side, the way these English women do, as though they were going to be sick.” She tossed her head enchantingly, kneeling on the bed like a naked nymph. “But I saw the glitter in Otto’s eyes, just for an instant. I’ll be bound he’s not so prim among the German wenches at Schonhausen, or wherever it is.”

I thought there was too much of Otto, and said so.

“Oh, yes, are you jealous, then?” says she, sticking out her lip at me. “You’ve made a bad enemy there, my dear. Or is the famous Captain Flashman careless of enemies?”

“They don’t concern me, German, French, or nigger,” says I. “I don’t think much of your Otto at all.”

“Well, you should,” says she, teasing. “For he’s going to be a great man some day—he told me so. ‘I have a destiny’, he said. ‘What’s that?’ I asked him. ‘To rule’, says he. So I told him I had ambitions, too—to live as I please, love as I please, and never grow old. He didn’t think much of that, I fancy; he told me I was frivolous, and would be disappointed. Only the strong, he said, could afford ambitions. So I told him I had a much better motto than that.”

“What was that?” says I, reaching out for her, but she caught my hands and held them apart, looking wicked.

“‘Courage—and shuffle the cards’,” says she.

“Damned sight better motto than his,” says I, pulling her down on top of me. “And I’m a greater man than he is, anyway.”

“Prove it—again,” said Miss Rosanna, biting at my chin. And, at the cost of more scratches and bruises, I did.