ant-colonel, a dry brown chip of a man with short
side-whiskers, pricked up his ears without letting a sound of curiosity
escape him.

"It's no trifle," added the colonel oracularly. The other waited for a
long while before he murmured:

"Indeed, sir!"

"No trifle," repeated the colonel, looking straight before him. "I've,
however, forbidden D'Hubert either to send to or receive a challenge
from Feraud for the next twelve months."

He had imagined this prohibition to save the prestige a colonel should
have. The result of it was to give an official seal to the mystery
surrounding this deadly quarrel. Lieutenant D'Hubert repelled by an
impassive silence all attempts to worm the truth out of him. Lieutenant
Feraud, secretly uneasy at first, regained his assurance as time went
on. He disguised his ignorance of the meaning of the imposed truce by
little sardonic laughs as though he were amused by what he intended to
keep to himself. "But what will you do?" his chums used to ask him. He
contented himself by replying, "_Qui vivra verra_," with a truculent
air. And everybody admired his discretion.

Before the end of the truce, Lieutenant D'Hubert got his promotion. It
was well earned, but somehow no one seemed to expect the event. When
Lieutenant Feraud heard of it at a gathering of officers, he muttered
through his teeth, "Is that so?" Unhooking his sword from a peg near the
door, he buckled it on carefully and left the company without another
word. He walked home with measured steps, struck a light with his flint
and steel, and lit his tallow candle. Then, snatching an unlucky glass
tumbler off the mantelpiece, he dashed it violently on the floor.

Now that D'Hubert was an officer of a rank superior to his own, there
could be no question of a duel. Neither could send nor receive a
challenge without rendering himself amenable to a court-martial. It
was not to be thought of. Lieutenant Feraud, who for many days now had
experienced no real desire to meet Lieutenant D'Hubert arms in hand,
chafed at the systematic injustice of fate. "Does he think he will
escape me in that way?" he thought indignantly. He saw in it an
intrigue, a conspiracy, a cowardly manoeuvre. That colonel knew what he
was doing. He had hastened to recommend his pet for promotion. It was
outrageous that a man should be able to avoid the consequences of his
acts in such a dark and tortuous manner.

Of a happy-go-lucky disposition, of a temperament more