General D'Hubert addressed them, speaking loud and distinctly,
"Messieurs, I make it a point of declaring to you solemnly, in the
presence of General Feraud, that our difference is at last settled for
good. You may inform all the world of that fact."
"A reconciliation, after all!" they exclaimed together.
"Reconciliation? Not that exactly. It is something much more binding. Is
it not so, General?"
General Feraud only lowered his head in sign of assent. The two veterans
looked at each other. Later in the day, when they found themselves alone
out of their moody friend's earshot, the cuirassier remarked suddenly,
"Generally speaking, I can see with my one eye as far as most people;
but this beats me. He won't say anything."
"In this affair of honour I understand there has been from first to last
always something that no one in the army could quite make out," declared
the chasseur with the imperfect nose. "In mystery it began, in mystery
it went on, in mystery it is to end, apparently."
General D'Hubert walked home with long, hasty strides, by no means
uplifted by a sense of triumph.
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