"
"Good heavens, Monsieur! You don't imagine I have been picking up this
quarrel last time I was in Paris, or anything of the sort, do you?"
"Eh! What matters the precise date of your insane conduct," exclaimed
the Chevalier, testily. "The principal thing is to arrange it."
Noticing General D'Hubert getting restive and trying to place a word,
the old emigre raised his hand, and added with dignity, "I've been a
soldier, too. I would never dare suggest a doubtful step to the man
whose name my niece is to bear. I tell you that entre galants hommes an
affair can always be arranged."
"But saperiotte, Monsieur le Chevalier, it's fifteen or sixteen years
ago. I was a lieutenant of hussars then."
The old Chevalier seemed confounded by the vehemently despairing tone of
this information. "You were a lieutenant of hussars sixteen years ago,"
he mumbled in a dazed manner.
"Why, yes! You did not suppose I was made a general in my cradle like a
royal prince."
In the deepening purple twilight of the fields spread with vine leaves,
backed by a low band of sombre crimson in the west, the voice of the old
ex-officer in the army of the Princes sounded collected, punctiliously
civil.
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