e better. Angelot was a
country boy, his pretensions below contempt, who yet deserved sharp
punishment for lifting his eyes so high, if not for the cool air of
equality with which he had ordered back his superior cousin's carriage.
General Ratoneau, in a soldier's eyes, was a distinguished man, a future
Marshal of France. Nothing more was needed to make him a desirable
brother-in-law. Georges was enthusiastic on that point.

Two things there were, which his mother impressed upon him earnestly and
with difficulty; one, that Ratoneau's probable triumph was a secret, and
must seem as great a surprise to herself and to him as it really would
be to Helene and his father; the other, that for the sake of Urbain de
la Mariniere, the valuable friend, he must pick no fresh quarrel with
Angelot, already deep in disgrace with all the family.

"It is as well that you told me, or I should have been tempted to try a
horse-whipping," said Captain Georges.

Two days after his arrival he rode off to Sonnay-le-Loir. It was the
right thing for an officer on leave to pay a visit of ceremony to the
General in command of the division, as well as to the Prefect of the
department, and this necessity came in very well at the moment.

Madame de Sainfoy spoke confidently, but she was in reality not quite
easy in her mind. She had seen and heard nothing of General Ratoneau
since the day when Urbain put his short letter into her hand. Sometimes,
impatient and anxious, worried by Helene's pale face and the fear of
some soft-hearted weakness on Herve's part, she found it difficult to
bear day after day of suspense and silence. Suppose the affair were
going ill, and not well! Suppose that, after all, the Prefect had
refused to gratify the General, and that no imperial command was coming
to break down Herve's resistance, strong enough in that quarter! Georges
promised her, as he rode away, that the matter should be cleared up to
her satisfaction.

He found the town of Sonnay-le-Loir, and General Ratoneau himself, in a
state of considerable agitation. The excellent Prefect was very ill. He
was never a strong man physically, and the nervous irritation caused by
such a colleague as Ratoneau might have been partly the cause of his
present collapse. Sorely against his will he had listened to Ratoneau's
fresh argument, and had consented to stop a whole string of political
arrests by forwarding the marriage the General had set his heart upon.
His own pers