“A more accommodating notary!” screamed Perrin, stung to madness by this reproach.  “There is not a more accommodating notary in Europe.  Ungrateful man! is this the return for all my zeal, my integrity, my unselfishness?  Is there another agent in the world who would have let such a bargain as Beaurepaire fall into your hands?  It serves me right for deviating from the rules of business.  Send me another agent—­oh!”

The honest soldier was confused.  The lawyer’s eloquence overpowered him.  He felt guilty.  Josephine saw his simplicity, and made a cut with a woman’s two-edged sword.  “Sir,” said she coolly, “do you not see it is an affair of money?  This is his way of saying, Pay me handsomely for so unusual a commission.”

“And I’ll pay him double,” cried Raynal, catching the idea; “don’t be alarmed, I’ll pay you for it.”

“And my zeal, my devotion?”

“Put ’em in figures.”

“And my prob—?”

“Add it up.”

“And my integ—?”

“Add them together:  and don’t bother me.”

“I see!  I see! my poor soldier.  You are no match for a woman’s tongue.”

“Nor, for a notary’s.  Go to h—–­, and send in your bill!” roared the soldier in a fury.  “Well, will you go?” and he marched at him.

The notary scuttled out, with something between a snarl and a squeak.

Josephine hid her face in her hands.

“What is the matter with you?” inquired Raynal.  “Not crying again, surely!”

“Me!  I never cry—­hardly.  I hid my face because I could not help laughing.  You frightened me, sir,” said she:  then very demurely, “I was afraid you were going to beat him.”

“No, no; a good soldier never leathers a civilian if he can possibly help it; it looks so bad; and before a lady!”

“Oh, I would have forgiven you, monsieur,” said Josephine benignly, and something like a little sun danced in her eye.

“Now, mademoiselle, since my referee has proved a pig, it is your turn.  Choose you a mutual friend.”

Josephine hesitated.  “Ours is so young.  You know him very well.  You are doubtless the commandant of whom I once heard him speak with such admiration:  his name is Riviere, Edouard Riviere.”

“Know him? he is my best officer, out and out.”  And without a moment’s hesitation he took Edouard’s present address, and accepted that youthful Daniel as their referee; then looked at his watch and marched off to his public duties with sabre clanking at his heels.

The notary went home gnashing his teeth.  His sweet revenge was turned to wormwood this day.  Raynal’s parting commissions rang in his ear; in his bitter mood the want of logical sequence in the two orders disgusted him.

So he inverted them.

He sent in a thundering bill the very next morning, but postponed the other commission till his dying day.

As for Josephine, she came into the drawing-room beaming with love and happiness, and after kissing both her mother and Rose with gentle violence, she let them know the strange turn things had taken.