“A child—­is she only a child?”

The trumpets sounded, the practice was resumed; this time, fortunately, no command, no responsibility.  The four batteries executed their evolutions together; this immense mass of men, horses, and carriages, deployed in every direction, now drawn out in a long line, again collected into a compact group.  All stopped at the same instant along the whole extent of the ground; the gunners sprang from their horses, ran to their pieces, detached each from its team, which went off at a trot and prepared to fire with amazing rapidity.  Then the horses returned, the men re-attached their pieces; sprang quickly to saddle, and the regiment started at full gallop across the field.

Very gently in the thoughts of Jean Bettina regained her advantage over Mrs. Scott.  She appeared to him smiling and blushing amid the sunlit clouds of her floating hair.  Monsieur Jean, she had called him, Monsieur Jean, and never had his name sounded so sweet.  And that last pressure of the hand on taking leave, before entering the carriage.  Had not Miss Percival given him a more cordial clasp than Mrs. Scott had done?  Yes, positively a little more.

“I was mistaken,” thought Jean; “the prettier is Miss Percival.”

The day’s work was finished; the pieces were ranged regularly in line one behind the other; they defiled rapidly, with a horrible clatter, and in a cloud of dust.  When Jean, sword in hand, passed before his Colonel, the images of the two sisters were so confused and intermingled in his recollection that they melted the one in the other, and became in some measure the image of one and the same person.  Any parallel became impossible between them, thanks to this singular confusion of the two points of comparison.  Mrs. Scott and Miss Percival remained thus inseparable in the thoughts of Jean until the day when it was granted to him to see them again.  The impression of that meeting was not effaced; it was always there, persistent, and very sweet, till Jean began to feel disturbed.

“Is it possible”—­so ran his meditations—­“is it possible that I have been guilty of the folly of falling in love madly at first sight?  No; one might fall in love with a woman, but not with two women at once.”

That thought reassured him.  He was very young, this great fellow of four-and-twenty; never had love entered fully into his heart.  Love!  He knew very little about it, except from books, and he had read but few of them.  But he was no angel; he could find plenty of attractions in the grisettes of Souvigny, and when they would allow him to tell them that they were charming, he was quite ready to do so, but it had never entered his head to regard as love those passing fancies, which only caused the slightest and most superficial disturbance in his heart.

Paul de Lavardens had marvellous powers of enthusiasm and idealization.  His heart sheltered always two or three grandes passions, which lived there in perfect harmony.  Paul had been so clever as to discover, in this little town of 15,000 souls, numbers of pretty girls, all made to be adored.  He always believed himself the discoverer of America, when, in fact, he had done nothing but follow in the track of other navigators.