The names of the two officers were Feraud and D"Hubert, and they were both lieutenants in a regiment of hussars, but not in the same regiment.
Feraud was doing regimental work, but Lieut. D"Hubert had the good fortune to be attached to the person of the general commanding the division, as officier d"ordonnance. It was in Strasbourg, and in this agreeable and important garrison they were enjoying greatly a short interval of peace. They were enjoying it, though both intensely warlike, because it was a sword-sharpening, firelock-cleaning peace, dear to a military heart and undamaging to military prestige, inasmuch that no one believed in its sincerity or duration.
Under those historical circ.u.mstances, so favourable to the proper appreciation of military leisure, Lieut. D"Hubert, one fine afternoon, made his way along a quiet street of a cheerful suburb towards Lieut.
Feraud"s quarters, which were in a private house with a garden at the back, belonging to an old maiden lady.
His knock at the door was answered instantly by a young maid in Alsatian costume. Her fresh complexion and her long eyelashes, lowered demurely at the sight of the tall officer, caused Lieut. D"Hubert, who was accessible to esthetic impressions, to relax the cold, severe gravity of his face. At the same time he observed that the girl had over her arm a pair of hussar"s breeches, blue with a red stripe.
"Lieut. Feraud in?" he inquired, benevolently.
"Oh, no, sir! He went out at six this morning."
The pretty maid tried to close the door. Lieut. D"Hubert, opposing this move with gentle firmness, stepped into the ante-room, jingling his spurs.
"Come, my dear! You don"t mean to say he has not been home since six o"clock this morning?"
Saying these words, Lieut. D"Hubert opened without ceremony the door of a room so comfortably and neatly ordered that only from internal evidence in the shape of boots, uniforms, and military accoutrements did he acquire the conviction that it was Lieut. Feraud"s room. And he saw also that Lieut. Feraud was not at home. The truthful maid had followed him, and raised her candid eyes to his face.
"H"m!" said Lieut. D"Hubert, greatly disappointed, for he had already visited all the haunts where a lieutenant of hussars could be found of a fine afternoon. "So he"s out? And do you happen to know, my dear, why he went out at six this morning?"
"No," she answered, readily. "He came home late last night, and snored.
I heard him when I got up at five. Then he dressed himself in his oldest uniform and went out. Service, I suppose."
"Service? Not a bit of it!" cried Lieut. D"Hubert. "Learn, my angel, that he went out thus early to fight a duel with a civilian."
She heard this news without a quiver of her dark eyelashes. It was very obvious that the actions of Lieut. Feraud were generally above criticism. She only looked up for a moment in mute surprise, and Lieut.
D"Hubert concluded from this absence of emotion that she must have seen Lieut. Feraud since the morning. He looked around the room.
"Come!" he insisted, with confidential familiarity. "He"s perhaps somewhere in the house now?"
She shook her head.
"So much the worse for him!" continued Lieut. D"Hubert, in a tone of anxious conviction. "But he has been home this morning."
This time the pretty maid nodded slightly.
"He has!" cried Lieut. D"Hubert. "And went out again? What for? Couldn"t he keep quietly indoors! What a lunatic! My dear girl--"
Lieut. D"Hubert"s natural kindness of disposition and strong sense of comradeship helped his powers of observation. He changed his tone to a most insinuating softness, and, gazing at the hussar"s breeches hanging over the arm of the girl, he appealed to the interest she took in Lieut.
Feraud"s comfort and happiness. He was pressing and persuasive. He used his eyes, which were kind and fine, with excellent effect. His anxiety to get hold at once of Lieut. Feraud, for Lieut. Feraud"s own good, seemed so genuine that at last it overcame the girl"s unwillingness to speak. Unluckily she had not much to tell. Lieut. Feraud had returned home shortly before ten, had walked straight into his room, and had thrown himself on his bed to resume his slumbers. She had heard him snore rather louder than before far into the afternoon. Then he got up, put on his best uniform, and went out. That was all she knew.
She raised her eyes, and Lieut. D"Hubert stared into them incredulously.
"It"s incredible. Gone parading the town in his best uniform! My dear child, don"t you know he ran that civilian through this morning? Clean through, as you spit a hare."
The pretty maid heard the gruesome intelligence without any signs of distress. But she pressed her lips together thoughtfully.
"He isn"t parading the town," she remarked in a low tone. "Far from it."
"The civilian"s family is making an awful row," continued Lieut.
D"Hubert, pursuing his train of thought. "And the general is very angry.
It"s one of the best families in the town. Feraud ought to have kept close at least--"
"What will the general do to him?" inquired the girl, anxiously.
"He won"t have his head cut off, to be sure," grumbled Lieut. D"Hubert.
"His conduct is positively indecent. He"s making no end of trouble for himself by this sort of bravado."
"But he isn"t parading the town," the maid insisted in a shy murmur.
"Why, yes! Now I think of it, I haven"t seen him anywhere about. What on earth has he done with himself?"
"He"s gone to pay a call," suggested the maid, after a moment of silence.
Lieut. D"Hubert started.
"A call! Do you mean a call on a lady? The cheek of the man! And how do you know this, my dear?"
Without concealing her woman"s scorn for the denseness of the masculine mind, the pretty maid reminded him that Lieut. Feraud had arrayed himself in his best uniform before going out. He had also put on his newest dolman, she added, in a tone as if this conversation were getting on her nerves, and turned away brusquely.
Lieut. D"Hubert, without questioning the accuracy of the deduction, did not see that it advanced him much on his official quest. For his quest after Lieut. Feraud had an official character. He did not know any of the women this fellow, who had run a man through in the morning, was likely to visit in the afternoon. The two young men knew each other but slightly. He bit his gloved finger in perplexity.
"Call!" he exclaimed. "Call on the devil!"
The girl, with her back to him, and folding the hussars breeches on a chair, protested with a vexed little laugh:
"Oh, dear, no! On Madame de Lionne."
Lieut. D"Hubert whistled softly. Madame de Lionne was the wife of a high official who had a well-known salon and some pretensions to sensibility and elegance. The husband was a civilian, and old; but the society of the salon was young and military. Lieut. D"Hubert had whistled, not because the idea of pursuing Lieut. Feraud into that very salon was disagreeable to him, but because, having arrived in Strasbourg only lately, he had not had the time as yet to get an introduction to Madame de Lionne. And what was that swashbuckler Feraud doing there, he wondered. He did not seem the sort of man who--
"Are you certain of what you say?" asked Lieut. D"Hubert.
The girl was perfectly certain. Without turning round to look at him, she explained that the coachman of their next door neighbours knew the maitre-d"hotel of Madame de Lionne. In this way she had her information.
And she was perfectly certain. In giving this a.s.surance she sighed.
Lieut. Feraud called there nearly every afternoon, she added.
"Ah, bah!" exclaimed D"Hubert, ironically. His opinion of Madame de Lionne went down several degrees. Lieut. Feraud did not seem to him specially worthy of attention on the part of a woman with a reputation for sensibility and elegance. But there was no saying. At bottom they were all alike--very practical rather than idealistic. Lieut. D"Hubert, however, did not allow his mind to dwell on these considerations.
"By thunder!" he reflected aloud. "The general goes there sometimes. If he happens to find the fellow making eyes at the lady there will be the devil to pay! Our general is not a very accommodating person, I can tell you."
"Go quickly, then! Don"t stand here now I"ve told you where he is!"
cried the girl, colouring to the eyes.
"Thanks, my dear! I don"t know what I would have done without you."
After manifesting his grat.i.tude in an aggressive way, which at first was repulsed violently, and then submitted to with a sudden and still more repellent indifference, Lieut. D"Hubert took his departure.
He clanked and jingled along the streets with a martial swagger. To run a comrade to earth in a drawing-room where he was not known did not trouble him in the least. A uniform is a pa.s.sport. His position as officier d"ordonnance of the general added to his a.s.surance. Moreover, now that he knew where to find Lieut. Feraud, he had no option. It was a service matter.