He was active in condolences at once.  “I am most sympathetic,” he said seriously.  “And for the trouble”—­he nicked it from him—­“there is no trouble.  I am honored.”

The Comtesse bowed to him.  “Monsieur is very amiable,” she murmured.

He hitched up his chair and sat down, facing the pair of them.  His shrewd eye took the measure of the Comtesse and her infirmity, without relinquishing a suggestion of admiration.  He was a man panoplied with the civil arts; his long career in camps and garrisons had subtracted nothing of social dexterity.  There was even a kind of grace in his attitude as he sat, his cane and hat in one hand, with one knee crossed upon the other.  He spent a moment in consideration.

“It is of the Capitaine Bertin that I am to speak?  Yes?” he asked suddenly.

The Comtesse stirred a little in her chair.  “Yes,” she answered, in a voice like a sigh—­a sigh of relief, perhaps.

“Ah!” He made a little gesture of acknowledgment.  “Le Capitaine Bertin!  Then Madame will compose herself to hear little that is agreeable, for it is a tale of tragedy.”  His eyes wandered for a moment; he seemed to be renewing and testing again the flavor of memories.  Under his trim moustache the mouth set and grew harder.  Then, without further preamble, he began to speak.

“Bertin and I were of the same rank,” he said, “and of much the same age.  There was never a time when we were friends; there stood between us too pronounced a difference—­a difference, Madame, of spirit, of aim, and even of physique.  Bertin was large, sanguine, with the face of a bold lover, of a man noticeably gallant.  I recall him most vividly as he sat in a cafe behind a little round table.  It was thus one saw him most frequently, with his hard, swarthy face and moustaches that curled like a ram’s horns.  In such places he seemed most at home, with men about him and cards ready to his hand; and yet—­has Madame seen the kind of man who is never wholly at his ease, who stands for ever on his guard, as it were!  Bertin was such a one; there were many occasions when I remarked it.  He would be in the centre of a company of his friends, assured, genial, dominant; and yet, at each fresh arrival in the room, he would look up with something furtive and defensive in his expression.  I have seen deserters like that, but in Bertin it lacked an explanation.”

“And there was a further matter yet.  He was my fellow officer; I saw him on parade and at mess; but his life, the life of his own choice, was lived among those who were not our equals.  How shall I make that clear to you, Madame?  In those days, Europe drained into Algiers; it had its little world of men who gambled and drank much, and understood one another with a complete mistrust; it was with such as these that Bertin occupied his leisure.  It was with them that his harshness and power were most efficacious.  Naturally, it was not pleasant for us, his colleagues, to behold him for ever with such companions; the most of them seemed to be men connected with one sport or another, with billiards, or racing, or the like; but there was nothing to be done.”