Lieut.  D’Hubert felt vexed beyond measure.  His shoulders moved slightly.  He made no other answer.  He could not ignore his responsibility.

The colonel veiled his glance and lowered his voice still more.  “It’s deplorable!” he murmured.  And again he changed his tone.  “Come!” he went on, persuasively, but with that note of authority which dwells in the throat of a good leader of men, “this affair must be settled.  I desire to be told plainly what it is all about.  I demand, as your best friend, to know.”

The compelling power of authority, the persuasive influence of kindness, affected powerfully a man just risen from a bed of sickness.  Lieut.  D’Hubert’s hand, which grasped the knob of a stick, trembled slightly.  But his northern temperament, sentimental yet cautious and clear-sighted, too, in its idealistic way, checked his impulse to make a clean breast of the whole deadly absurdity.  According to the precept of transcendental wisdom, he turned his tongue seven times in his mouth before he spoke.  He made then only a speech of thanks.

The colonel listened, interested at first, then looked mystified.  At last he frowned.  “You hesitate?—­mille tonnerres!  Haven’t I told you that I will condescend to argue with you—­as a friend?”

“Yes, Colonel!” answered Lieut.  D’Hubert, gently.  “But I am afraid that after you have heard me out as a friend you will take action as my superior officer.”

The attentive colonel snapped his jaws.  “Well, what of that?” he said, frankly.  “Is it so damnably disgraceful?”

“It is not,” negatived Lieut.  D’Hubert, in a faint but firm voice.

“Of course, I shall act for the good of the service.  Nothing can prevent me doing that.  What do you think I want to be told for?”

“I know it is not from idle curiosity,” protested Lieut.  D’Hubert.  “I know you will act wisely.  But what about the good fame of the regiment?”

“It cannot be affected by any youthful folly of a lieutenant,” said the colonel, severely.

“No.  It cannot be.  But it can be by evil tongues.  It will be said that a lieutenant of the 4th Hussars, afraid of meeting his adversary, is hiding behind his colonel.  And that would be worse than hiding behind a haystack—­for the good of the service.  I cannot afford to do that, Colonel.”

“Nobody would dare to say anything of the kind,” began the colonel very fiercely, but ended the phrase on an uncertain note.  The bravery of Lieut.  D’Hubert was well known.  But the colonel was well aware that the duelling courage, the single combat courage, is rightly or wrongly supposed to be courage of a special sort.  And it was eminently necessary that an officer of his regiment should possess every kind of courage—­and prove it, too.  The colonel stuck out his lower lip, and looked far away with a peculiar glazed stare.  This was the expression of his perplexity—­an expression practically unknown to his regiment; for perplexity