pital all day, but somebody has told me that he hadn't a
scratch."

"Not the same duel probably," growled moodily Lieutenant D'Hubert,
wiping his hands on a coarse towel.

"Not the same.... What? Another? It would take the very devil to make
me go out twice in one day." He looked narrowly at Lieutenant
D'Hubert. "How did you come by that scratched face? Both sides too--and
symmetrical. It's amusing."

"Very," snarled Lieutenant D'Hubert. "And you will find his slashed arm
amusing too. It will keep both of you amused for quite a long time."

The doctor was mystified and impressed by the brusque bitterness of
Lieutenant D'Hubert's tone. They left the house together, and in the
street he was still more mystified by his conduct.

"Aren't you coming with me?" he asked.

"No," said Lieutenant D'Hubert. "You can find the house by yourself. The
front door will be open very likely."

"All right. Where's his room?"

"Ground floor. But you had better go right through and look in the
garden first."

This astonishing piece of information made the surgeon go off without
further parley. Lieutenant D'Hubert regained his quarters nursing a hot
and uneasy indignation. He dreaded the chaff of his comrades almost
as much as the anger of his superiors. He felt as though he had been
entrapped into a damaging exposure. The truth was confoundedly grotesque
and embarrassing to justify; putting aside the irregularity of the
combat itself which made it come dangerously near a criminal offence.
Like all men without much imagination, which is such a help in the
processes of reflective thought, Lieutenant D'Hubert became frightfully
harassed by the obvious aspects of his predicament. He was certainly
glad that he had not killed Lieutenant Feraud outside all rules and
without the regular witnesses proper to such a transaction. Uncommonly
glad. At the same time he felt as though he would have liked to wring
his neck for him without ceremony.

He was still under the sway of these contradictory sentiments when the
surgeon amateur of the flute came to see him. More than three days had
elapsed. Lieutenant D'Hubert was no longer _officier d'ordonnance_
to the general commanding the division. He had been sent back to his
regiment. And he was resuming his connection with the soldiers' military
family, by being shut up in close confinement not at his own quarters
in town, but in a room in the barracks. Owing to the gravity of the
incident, he was