“I’ve been thinking it over calmly,” he said, gazing at them with bloodshot, tired eyes.  “I see that I must get rid of that intriguing personage.  Here he’s managed to sneak onto the personal staff of the marshal.  It’s a direct provocation to me.  I can’t tolerate a situation in which I am exposed any day to receive an order through him, and God knows what order, too!  That sort of thing has happened once before—­and that’s once too often.  He understands this perfectly, never fear.  I can’t tell you more than this.  Now go.  You know what it is you have to do.”

This encounter took place outside the town of Lubeck, on very open ground selected with special care in deference to the general sense of the cavalry division belonging to the army corps, that this time the two officers should meet on horseback.  After all, this duel was a cavalry affair, and to persist in fighting on foot would look like a slight on one’s own arm of the service.  The seconds, startled by the unusual nature of the suggestion, hastened to refer to their principals.  Captain Feraud jumped at it with savage alacrity.  For some obscure reason, depending, no doubt, on his psychology, he imagined himself invincible on horseback.  All alone within the four walls of his room he rubbed his hands exultingly.  “Aha! my staff officer, I’ve got you now!”

Captain D’Hubert, on his side, after staring hard for a considerable time at his bothered seconds, shrugged his shoulders slightly.  This affair had hopelessly and unreasonably complicated his existence for him.  One absurdity more or less in the development did not matter.  All absurdity was distasteful to him; but, urbane as ever, he produced a faintly ironic smile and said in his calm voice: 

“It certainly will do away to some extent with the monotony of the thing.”

But, left to himself, he sat down at a table and took his head into his hands.  He had not spared himself of late, and the marshal had been working his aides-de-camp particularly hard.  The last three weeks of campaigning in horrible weather had affected his health.  When overtired he suffered from a stitch in his wounded side, and that uncomfortable sensation always depressed him.  “It’s that brute’s doing,” he thought bitterly.

The day before he had received a letter from home, announcing that his only sister was going to be married.  He reflected that from the time she was sixteen, when he went away to garrison life in Strasburg, he had had but two short glimpses of her.  They had been great friends and confidants; and now they were going to give her away to a man whom he did not know—­a very worthy fellow, no doubt, but not half good enough for her.  He would never see his old Leonie again.  She had a capable little head and plenty of tact; she would know how to manage the fellow, to be sure.  He was easy about her happiness, but he felt ousted from the first place in her affection which had been his ever since the girl could speak.  And a melancholy regret of the days of his childhood settled upon Captain D’Hubert, third aide-de-camp to the Prince of Ponte-Corvo.