.

"I drink to our deliverance!" he shouted.

All stood up, and greeted the toast with acclamation. Even the two good
sisters yielded to the solicitations of the ladies, and consented to
moisten their lips with the foaming wine, which they had never before
tasted. They declared it was like effervescent lemonade, but with a
pleasanter flavor.

"It is a pity," said Loiseau, "that we have no piano; we might have had a
quadrille."

Cornudet had not spoken a word or made a movement; he seemed plunged in
serious thought, and now and then tugged furiously at his great beard, as
if trying to add still further to its length. At last, toward midnight,
when they were about to separate, Loiseau, whose gait was far from
steady, suddenly slapped him on the back, saying thickly:

"You're not jolly to-night; why are you so silent, old man?"

Cornudet threw back his head, cast one swift and scornful glance over the
assemblage, and answered:

"I tell you all, you have done an infamous thing!"

He rose, reached the door, and repeating: "Infamous!" disappeared.

A chill fell on all. Loiseau himself looked foolish and disconcerted for
a moment, but soon recovered his aplomb, and, writhing with laughter,
exclaimed:

"Really, you are all too green for anything!"

Pressed for an explanation, he related the "mysteries of the corridor,"
whereat his listeners were hugely amused. The ladies could hardly contain
their delight. The count and Monsieur Carre-Lamadon laughed till they
cried. They could scarcely believe their ears.

"What! you are sure? He wanted----"

"I tell you I saw it with my own eyes."

"And she refused?"

"Because the Prussian was in the next room!"

"Surely you are mistaken?"

"I swear I'm telling you the truth."

The count was choking with laughter. The manufacturer held his sides.
Loiseau continued:

"So you may well imagine he doesn't think this evening's business at all
amusing."

And all three began to laugh again, choking, coughing, almost ill with
merriment.

Then they separated. But Madame Loiseau, who was nothing if not spiteful,
remarked to her husband as they were on the way to bed that "that
stuck-up little minx of a Carre-Lamadon had laughed on the wrong side of
her mouth all the evening."

"You know," she said, "when women run after uniforms it's all the same to
them whether the men who wear them are French or Prussian. It's perfectly
sickening!"

The next morning the snow showed daz