“Then you are Zephyrin Lacour, are you not?” asked Helene.

He began to laugh and wagged his head.

“Come in, my lad; don’t stay out there.”

He made up his mind to follow her, but he continued standing close to the door, while Helene sat down.  She had scarcely seen him in the darkness of the ante-room.  He must have been just as tall as Rosalie; a third of an inch less, and he would have been exempted from service.  With red hair, cut very short, he had a round, freckled, beardless face, with two little eyes like gimlet holes.  His new greatcoat, much too large for him, made him appear still more dumpy, and with his red-trousered legs wide apart, and his large peaked cap swinging before him, he presented both a comical and pathetic sight—­his plump, stupid little person plainly betraying the rustic, although he wore a uniform.

Helene desired to obtain some information from him.

“You left Beauce a week ago?” she asked.

“Yes, madame!”

“And here you are in Paris.  I suppose you are not sorry?”

“No, madame.”

He was losing his bashfulness, and now gazed all over the room, evidently much impressed by its blue velvet hangings.

“Rosalie is out,” Helene began again, “but she will be here very soon.  Her aunt tells me you are her sweetheart.”

To this the little soldier vouchsafed no reply, but hung his head, laughing awkwardly, and scraping the carpet with the tip of his boot.

“Then you will have to marry her when you leave the army?” Helene continued questioning.

“Yes, to be sure!” exclaimed he, his face turning very red.  “Yes, of course; we are engaged!” And, won over by the kindly manners of the lady, he made up his mind to speak out, his fingers still playing with his cap.  “You know it’s an old story.  When we were quite children, we used to go thieving together.  We used to get switched; oh yes, that’s true!  I must tell you that the Lacours and the Pichons lived in the same lane, and were next-door neighbors.  And so Rosalie and myself were almost brought up together.  Then her people died, and her aunt Marguerite took her in.  But she, the minx, was already as strong as a demon.”

He paused, realizing that he was warming up, and asked hesitatingly: 

“But perhaps she has told you all this?”

“Yes, yes; but go on all the same,” said Helene, who was greatly amused.

“In short,” continued he, “she was awfully strong, though she was no bigger than a tomtit.  It was a treat to see her at her work!  How she did get through it!  One day she gave a slap to a friend of mine—­by Jove! such a slap!  I had the mark of it on my arm for a week!  Yes, that was the way it all came about.  All the gossips declared we must marry one another.  Besides, we weren’t ten years old before we had agreed on that!  And, we have stuck to it, madame, we have stuck to it!”