“The chief seems to know this animal,” he thought, eyeing his companion, whose round face, the round eyes and even the twisted-up jet black little moustache seemed animated by his mental exasperation before the incomprehensible.  And aloud he observed rather reproachfully, “The general is in a devilish fury with you.”

Lieutenant Feraud stopped short on the edge of the pavement and cried in the accents of unmistakable sincerity:  “What on earth for?” The innocence of the fiery Gascon soul was depicted in the manner in which he seized his head in both his hands as if to prevent it bursting with perplexity.

“For the duel,” said Lieutenant D’Hubert curtly.  He was annoyed greatly by this sort of perverse fooling.

“The duel!  The...”

Lieutenant Feraud passed from one paroxysm of astonishment into another.  He dropped his hands and walked on slowly trying to reconcile this information with the state of his own feelings.  It was impossible.  He burst out indignantly: 

“Was I to let that sauerkraut-eating civilian wipe his boots on the uniform of the Seventh Hussars?”

Lieutenant D’Hubert could not be altogether unsympathetic toward that sentiment.  This little fellow is a lunatic, he thought to himself, but there is something in what he says.

“Of course, I don’t know how far you were justified,” he said soothingly.  “And the general himself may not be exactly informed.  A lot of people have been deafening him with their lamentations.”

“Ah, he is not exactly informed,” mumbled Lieutenant Feraud, walking faster and faster as his choler at the injustice of his fate began to rise.  “He is not exactly....  And he orders me under close arrest with God knows what afterward.”

“Don’t excite yourself like this,” remonstrated the other.  “That young man’s people are very influential, you know, and it looks bad enough on the face of it.  The general had to take notice of their complaint at once.  I don’t think he means to be over-severe with you.  It is best for you to be kept out of sight for a while.”

“I am very much obliged to the general,” muttered Lieutenant Feraud through his teeth.

“And perhaps you would say I ought to be grateful to you too for the trouble you have taken to hunt me up in the drawing-room of a lady who...”

“Frankly,” interrupted Lieutenant D’Hubert, with an innocent laugh, “I think you ought to be.  I had no end of trouble to find out where you were.  It wasn’t exactly the place for you to disport yourself in under the circumstances.  If the general had caught you there making eyes at the goddess of the temple....  Oh, my word!...  He hates to be bothered with complaints against his officers, you know.  And it looked uncommonly like sheer bravado.”

The two officers had arrived now at the street door of Lieutenant Feraud’s lodgings.  The latter turned toward his companion.  “Lieutenant D’Hubert,” he said, “I have something to say to you which can’t be said very well in the street.  You can’t refuse to come in.”