s paper, gossip a
little, and take Rogron off to walk if the weather was fine. Sure
of seeing the colonel and being able to question him, Sylvie dressed
herself as coquettishly as she knew how. The old maid thought she was
attractive in a green gown, a yellow shawl with a red border, and a
white bonnet with straggling gray feathers. About the hour when the
colonel usually came Sylvie stationed herself in the salon with
her brother, whom she had compelled to stay in the house in his
dressing-gown and slippers.

"It is a fine day, colonel," said Rogron, when Gouraud with his heavy
step entered the room. "But I'm not dressed; my sister wanted to go out,
and I was going to keep the house. Wait for me; I'll be ready soon."

So saying, Rogron left Sylvie alone with the colonel.

"Where were you going? you are dressed divinely," said Gouraud, who
noticed a certain solemnity on the pock-marked face of the old maid.

"I wanted very much to go out, but my little cousin is ill, and I cannot
leave her."

"What is the matter with her?"

"I don't know; she had to go to bed."

Gouraud's caution, not to say his distrust, was constantly excited by
the results of his alliance with Vinet. It certainly appeared that the
lawyer had got the lion's share in their enterprise. Vinet controlled
the paper, he reigned as sole master over it, he took the revenues;
whereas the colonel, the responsible editor, earned little. Vinet and
Cournant had done the Rogrons great services; whereas Gouraud, a colonel
on half-pay, could do nothing. Who was to be deputy? Vinet. Who was the
chief authority in the party? Vinet. Whom did the liberals all consult?
Vinet. Moreover, the colonel knew fully as well as Vinet himself the
extent and depth of the passion suddenly aroused in Rogron by the
beautiful Bathilde de Chargeboeuf. This passion had now become intense,
like all the last passions of men. Bathilde's voice made him tremble.
Absorbed in his desires Rogron hid them; he dared not hope for such
a marriage. To sound him, the colonel mentioned that he was thinking
himself of asking for Bathilde's hand. Rogron turned pale at the thought
of such a formidable rival, and had since then shown coldness and even
hatred to Gouraud.

Thus Vinet reigned supreme in the Rogron household while he, the
colonel, had no hold there except by the extremely hypothetical tie of
his mendacious affection for Sylvie, which it was not yet clear that
Sylvie reciprocated. When