f sight, and the Prefect would not interfere--there could not be a
better ground than the sand here by the house. Must one wait for all the
formalities of a duel, with the Prefect and Angelot to see fair play?
However, he tried hard to restrain himself, at least for the moment.

"My wife is dead, monsieur, and I have but that one child," he said,
forcing the words out with difficulty: it was a triumph of the wise and
gentle Joseph over the fiery and passionate Joseph.

He thought of Urbain, when he wanted to conquer that side of himself;
Urbain, who by counsel and influence had made it safe for him to live
under the Empire, and who now, hating vulgarity and insolence as much as
he did himself, would have pointed out that General Ratoneau's military
brutality was not worth resenting; that there were greater things at
stake than a momentary annoyance; that the man's tongue had been
loosened, his lumbering spirit quickened, by draughts of sparkling wine
of Anjou, and that his horrible curiosity carried no intentional insult
with it. Indeed, as Monsieur Joseph perceived immediately, with a kind
of wonder, the man fancied that he was making himself agreeable to his
host.

"Ah, sapristi, I am sorry for you, monsieur, and for the young lady
too," he said. "I am not married myself--but the loss of wife and mother
must be a dreadful thing. Excuse a soldier's tongue, monsieur."

Monsieur Joseph accepted the apology with a quick movement of head and
hand, being as placable as he was passionate. The General continued to
stare at Henriette, who moved slowly, seeming to think of nothing, to
see nothing, but the wild flowers and the crowd of flitting butterflies
in the meadow.

During this little interlude, one of the gendarmes, who had seemed
asleep, got up and moved towards the Prefect, who turned to speak to
him, and after the first word walked with him a few yards, so as to be
out of hearing of the others. Angelot, who had been standing beside the
Prefect, glanced after them with a touch of anxiety. He did not like the
looks of that gendarme, though he had not, like Marie Gigot, recognised
him as specially dangerous. He walked forward a few steps and stood
beside his uncle. Suppose the meeting of that morning, risky if not
unlawful, were to come to the Prefect's knowledge; suppose his uncle's
dangerous friends were ferreted out of their hiding-place in the wood;
what then was he, his father's son, to do? His mother's son, thou