One afternoon, sitting on the terrasse of the Cafe Tortoni, General D’Hubert learned from the conversation of two strangers occupying a table near his own that General Feraud, included in the batch of superior officers arrested after the second return of the king, was in danger of passing before the Special Commission.  Living all his spare moments, as is frequently the case with expectant lovers a day in advance of reality, as it were, and in a state of bestarred hallucination, it required nothing less than the name of his perpetual antagonist pronounced in a loud voice to call the youngest of Napoleon’s generals away from the mental contemplation of his betrothed.  He looked round.  The strangers wore civilian clothes.  Lean and weather-beaten, lolling back in their chairs, they looked at people with moody and defiant abstraction from under their hats pulled low over their eyes.  It was not difficult to recognise them for two of the compulsorily retired officers of the Old Guard.  As from bravado or carelessness they chose to speak in loud tones, General D’Hubert, who saw no reason why he should change his seat, heard every word.  They did not seem to be the personal friends of General Feraud.  His name came up with some others; and hearing it repeated General D’Hubert’s tender anticipations of a domestic future adorned by a woman’s grace were traversed by the harsh regret of that warlike past, of that one long, intoxicating clash of arms, unique in the magnitude of its glory and disaster—­the marvellous work and the special possession of his own generation.  He felt an irrational tenderness toward his old adversary, and appreciated emotionally the murderous absurdity their encounter had introduced into his life.  It was like an additional pinch of spice in a hot dish.  He remembered the flavour with sudden melancholy.  He would never taste it again.  It was all over....  “I fancy it was being left lying in the garden that had exasperated him so against me,” he thought indulgently.

The two strangers at the next table had fallen silent upon the third mention of General Feraud’s name.  Presently, the oldest of the two, speaking in a bitter tone, affirmed that General Feraud’s account was settled.  And why?  Simply because he was not like some big-wigs who loved only themselves.  The royalists knew that they could never make anything of him.  He loved the Other too well.

The Other was the man of St. Helena.  The two officers nodded and touched glasses before they drank to an impossible return.  Then the same who had spoken before remarked with a sardonic little laugh: 

“His adversary showed more cleverness.”

“What adversary?” asked the younger as if puzzled.

“Don’t you know?  They were two Hussars.  At each promotion they fought a duel.  Haven’t you heard of the duel that is going on since 1801?”

His friend had heard of the duel, of course.  Now he understood the allusion.  General Baron D’Hubert would be able now to enjoy his fat king’s favour in peace.