s a finicking completeness, moreover, about his
toilet, greater than the male being is accustomed to bestow upon
himself, in his scrupulously white hands and his carefully curled
mustache, and a faint perfume of Persian lilac, which had the effect of
reminding one in some mysterious way of the dressing room of a young and
pretty woman.

"Hallo!" said Loubet, with a sneer, "the captain has recovered his
baggage!"

But no one laughed, for they all knew him to be a man with whom it was
not well to joke. He was stiff and consequential with his men, and was
detested accordingly; a _pete sec_, to use Rochas's expression. He
had seemed to regard the early reverses of the campaign as personal
affronts, and the disaster that all had prognosticated was to him an
unpardonable crime. He was a strong Bonapartist by conviction; his
prospects for promotion were of the brightest; he had several important
salons looking after his interests; naturally, he did not take kindly to
the changed condition of affairs that promised to make his cake dough.
He was said to have a remarkably fine tenor voice, which had helped him
no little in his advancement. He was not devoid of intelligence, though
perfectly ignorant as regarded everything connected with his profession;
eager to please, and very brave, when there was occasion for being so,
without superfluous rashness.

"What a nasty fog!" was all he said, pleased to have found his company
at last, for which he had been searching for more than half an hour.

At the same time their orders came, and the battalion moved forward.
They had to proceed with caution, feeling their way, for the exhalations
continued to rise from the stream and were now so dense that they were
precipitated in a fine, drizzling rain. A vision rose before Maurice's
eyes that impressed him deeply; it was Colonel de Vineuil, who loomed
suddenly from out the mist, sitting his horse, erect and motionless, at
the intersection of two roads--the man appearing of preternatural size,
and so pale and rigid that he might have served a sculptor as a study
for a statue of despair; the steed shivering in the raw, chill air of
morning, his dilated nostrils turned in the direction of the distant
firing. Some ten paces to their rear were the regimental colors, which
the sous-lieutenant whose duty it was to bear them had thus early taken
from their case and proudly raised aloft, and as the driving, vaporous
rack eddied and swirled about th