You shall look out a nice wife for me.  I will be moderately bald by then, and a little blase; I will require a young girl—­pretty, of course, and with a large fortune, you know, to help me close my glorious career with the splendour befitting my exalted rank.”  He ended with the information that he had just given a lesson to a worrying, quarrelsome fellow, who imagined he had a grievance against him.  “But if you, in the depth of your province,” he continued, “ever hear it said that your brother is of a quarrelsome disposition, don’t you believe it on any account.  There is no saying what gossip from the army may reach your innocent ears; whatever you hear, you may assure our father that your ever loving brother is not a duellist.”  Then Captain D’Hubert crumpled up the sheet of paper with the words, “This is my last will and testament,” and threw it in the fire with a great laugh at himself.  He didn’t care a snap for what that lunatic fellow could do.  He had suddenly acquired the conviction that this man was utterly powerless to affect his life in any sort of way, except, perhaps, in the way of putting a certain special excitement into the delightful gay intervals between the campaigns.

From this on there were, however, to be no peaceful intervals in the career of Captain D’Hubert.  He saw the fields of Eylau and Friedland, marched and countermarched in the snow, the mud, and the dust of Polish plains, picking up distinction and advancement on all the roads of northeastern Europe.  Meantime, Captain Feraud, despatched southward with his regiment, made unsatisfactory war in Spain.  It was only when the preparations for the Russian campaign began that he was ordered north again.  He left the country of mantillas and oranges without regret.

The first signs of a not unbecoming baldness added to the lofty aspect of Colonel D’Hubert’s forehead.  This feature was no longer white and smooth as in the days of his youth, and the kindly open glance of his blue eyes had grown a little hard, as if from much peering through the smoke of battles.  The ebony crop on Colonel Feraud’s head, coarse and crinkly like a cap of horsehair, showed many silver threads about the temples.  A detestable warfare of ambushes and inglorious surprises had not improved his temper.  The beaklike curve of his nose was unpleasantly set off by deep folds on each side of his mouth.  The round orbits of his eyes radiated fine wrinkles.  More than ever he recalled an irritable and staring fowl—­something like a cross between a parrot and an owl.  He still manifested an outspoken dislike for “intriguing fellows.”  He seized every opportunity to state that he did not pick up his rank in the anterooms of marshals.

The unlucky persons, civil or military, who, with an intention of being pleasant, begged Colonel Feraud to tell them how he came by that very apparent scar on the forehead, were astonished to find themselves snubbed in various ways, some of which were simply rude and others mysteriously sardonic.  Young officers were warned kindly by their more experienced comrades not to stare openly at the colonel’s scar.  But, indeed, an officer need have been very young in his profession not to have heard the legendary tale of that duel originating in some mysterious, unforgivable offence.