cate and superb quality which so distinguished her. The scandal
of the brawl was the small thing that was needed to turn Bertin's
course downhill; almost from that day one could mark his decline. It
was not a matter of incidents; it was simply that within a year most
of us were passing him without recognition, and there was talk of
debts that troubled him. He had deteriorated, too; whereas of old he
was florid, now he was inflamed and gross; where he had been merely
loud, he was now coarse. Within eighteen months the Colonel had made
him a scene, had told him sour truths, and shaken his finger at him.
That power of his, Madame, was not the power that enables a man to
hold his level. Even with the companions of his leisure, his
ascendancy faded. I recollect seeing him once, at the corner of the
Place du Gouvernement, in the centre of a group of them, raging
almost tearfully, while they laughed at him. The horrible laughter of
those outcasts, edged like a saw, cruel and vile! And he was purple
with fury, shaking like a man in an ague, and helpless against them.
I was young in those days and not incapable of generous impulses; I
recollect that as I passed I jostled one of those creatures out of
the path, and then turned and waited for the remonstrance which he
decided not to make."

The Comtesse nodded at the fire, like one well pleased. The little
Colonel gave her another of his shrewd glances and went on.

"As you see, Madame, it is not possible to describe to you the steps
by which Bertin sank. The end came within two years of the duel. One
knew--somehow--that it was at hand. There were things dropped in
talk, things overheard and pieced together--a whole atmosphere of
scandal, in which there came and went little items of plain fact. The
trouble was with regimental funds; again I will spare Madame the
details; but certain of them which should have passed through
Bertin's hands had not arrived at their destination. Clerks from a
bank came to work upon the accounts; strange, cool young men, who
hunted figures through ledgers as a ferret traces a rat under a
floor. You must understand that for the regiment it was a monstrous
matter, an affair to hide sedulously; it touched our intimate honor.
There was a meeting of the rest of us to consider the thing; finally,
it was I that was deputed to go forthwith to Bertin and persuade him
to leave the city, to vanish, to do his part to save our credit. And
that evening, as soon as