It must not be supposed that all these variations of his inward state were made manifest to the world.  General D ’Hubert found no difficulty in appearing wreathed in smiles.  Because, in fact, he was very happy.  He followed the established rules of his condition, sending over flowers (from his sister’s garden and hot-houses) early every morning, and a little later following himself to lunch with his intended, her mother, and her emigre uncle.  The middle of the day was spent in strolling or sitting in the shade.  A watchful deference, trembling on the verge of tenderness was the note of their intercourse on his side—­with a playful turn of the phrase concealing the profound trouble of his whole being caused by her inaccessible nearness.  Late in the afternoon General D ’Hubert walked home between the fields of vines, sometimes intensely miserable, sometimes supremely happy, sometimes pensively sad; but always feeling a special intensity of existence, that elation common to artists, poets, and lovers—­to men haunted by a great passion, a noble thought, or a new vision of plastic beauty.

The outward world at that time did not exist with any special distinctness for General D’Hubert.  One evening, however, crossing a ridge from which he could see both houses, General D’Hubert became aware of two figures far down the road.  The day had been divine.  The festal decoration of the inflamed sky lent a gentle glow to the sober tints of the southern land.  The grey rocks, the brown fields, the purple, undulating distances harmonized in luminous accord, exhaled already the scents of the evening.  The two figures down the road presented themselves like two rigid and wooden silhouettes all black on the ribbon of white dust.  General D’Hubert made out the long, straight, military capotes buttoned closely right up to the black stocks, the cocked hats, the lean, carven, brown countenances—­old soldiers—­vieilles moustaches!  The taller of the two had a black patch over one eye; the other’s hard, dry countenance presented some bizarre, disquieting peculiarity, which on nearer approach proved to be the absence of the tip of the nose.  Lifting their hands with one movement to salute the slightly lame civilian walking with a thick stick, they inquired for the house where the General Baron D’Hubert lived, and what was the best way to get speech with him quietly.

“If you think this quiet enough,” said General D’Hubert, looking round at the vine-fields, framed in purple lines, and dominated by the nest of grey and drab walls of a village clustering around the top of a conical hill, so that the blunt church tower seemed but the shape of a crowning rock—­“if you think this spot quiet enough, you can speak to him at once.  And I beg you, comrades, to speak openly, with perfect confidence.”

They stepped back at this, and raised again their hands to their hats with marked ceremoniousness.  Then the one with the chipped nose, speaking for both, remarked that the matter was confidential enough, and to be arranged discreetly.  Their general quarters were established in that village over there, where the infernal clodhoppers—­damn their false, Royalist hearts!—­looked remarkably cross-eyed at three unassuming military men.  For the present he should only ask for the name of General D’Hubert’s friends.