a reply; for I have too good an opinion of the ladies not to feel sure that it would take something more than twenty thousand francs to captivate them.

But the cabriolet is speeding along; we will resume our reflections at some other time.

“Bébelle goes very well. You are warm, lieutenant; don’t you want me to take the reins?”

“No, I like to drive.”

“We shall be at Monsieur Destival’s by eleven o’clock.”

“That is quite early enough; and from that time until five o’clock, when we dine—But I promised a long while ago. At all events, Madame Destival is an excellent musician, and we will try to amuse ourselves while we are waiting for dinner.”

“Why did you bring me, lieutenant? I can’t play or sing, and as I don’t belong in the salon, where am I to do sentry-duty?”

“Never fear; Monsieur Destival expressly requested me to bring you. He has become infatuated with hunting, and he wants you to teach him to handle a gun.”

“Very well, lieutenant, I’ll teach him all I know; that won’t take long.”

“Poor Virginie! What a rage she will be in to-night! I promised to take her to Feydeau——”

“She has often promised you things, and then broken her word.”

“How do you know that, Bertrand?”

“Because I’ve heard, lieutenant, that Mademoiselle Virginie’s a terrible liar.”

“That is true; yes, I have had proofs of it more than once.”

“That’s very bad, after all that you’ve done for her! But you’re so kindhearted, you always allow yourself to be imposed on! Ten thousand carbines! if the hussy had killed herself every time she threatened to perish because she didn’t have enough to pay her rent——”

“Come, come, Monsieur Bertrand, be quiet! You have a wicked tongue.—Go on, Bébelle; I believe you’re asleep.”

“And one evening, when you went out, and she told me her troubles! She said that if she had had a weakness for you, it was because she was too loving, but that she was determined to change her ways, not to see you any more, and to make up with her aunt. For my part, I believed every word of it; in fact, she had such a sincere way of saying it, that I felt all ready to cry. But no sooner did she learn that you were at the masked ball than she shouted: ‘I’m going too, Bertrand! lend me some clothes, I’m going to dress as a man!’—‘What, mademoiselle,’ says I, ‘when you’re talking about being good and not seeing Monsieur Auguste any more!’—At that she began to laugh like a madwoman and called me an old turkey-cock! Faith, lieutenant, I don’t understand a woman like that.”

“I can well believe it, my poor Bertrand; even I myself don’t understand her, and I know her better than you do.”

“I like that little light-haired woman better; you know, lieutenant, the one you got acquainted with by carrying back the little poodle she’d lost, that I found lying at our door at night.”

“You mean Léonie?”

“No, I mean Madame de Saint-Edmond.”

“Léonie and Saint-Edmond are the same person.”

“I didn’t know, lieutenant.”

“But look you, Bertrand, it was your fault that I made her acquaintance.”

“The poodle’s rather, lieutenant.”

“Léonie lived in the same house with me, and I didn’t know her.”

“Parbleu, lieutenant, as if a body knew all his neighbors in Paris! except concierges and cooks, whose business it is.”

“At all events, you found the dog, and I bade you ask the concierge if anyone in the house had lost it.”

“And he told me that there was a young lady on the third floor, who had lain awake all night for grief at losing her dog, and that her maid, after searching from garret to cellar, had gone out to have placards printed offering thirty francs reward to whoever brought the little beast back. I confess that I didn’t have any idea that the little poodle, which did nothing but bite and growl, was worth more than four months’ pay for a private soldier; but I went up to the third floor in a hurry, to have the order for the placards countermanded by giving the little beast back to its mistress. To celebrate his return, he began by scratching a handsome blue satin armchair and putting his paws in madame’s cup of chocolate; but that didn’t prevent her calling him her little jewel, and expressing the greatest gratitude to me. Still, lieutenant, I don’t see anything in all that to force you to fall in love with Madame Léonie Saint-Edmond.”

“You haven’t told everything, Bertrand: you forget that, when you came down from the third floor, you drew a very alluring picture of that lady; you told me that she had a pair of eyes—and a voice—and a certain shape!”

“Bless me, lieutenant, I should say that all women have eyes and a shape and a voice!”

“Yes, to be sure; but still I was curious to know this young neighbor of ours, who showed such keen sensibility.”

“And it would seem, lieutenant, that you dislodged the poodle, for since then Madame Saint-Edmond is forever at your heels; and as for me, madame questions me and tries to make me talk; she sends for me to come up when she’s at breakfast, and as she offers me a little glass of malaga and a biscuit, she asks me where you passed the evening before.”

“And Monsieur Bertrand, melted by the malaga, recounts my actions to my neighbor, I presume?”

“Oh! for shame, lieutenant! What do you take me for? The idea of my betraying my master’s secrets! If there had been half a dozen bottles of malaga in front of me, I wouldn’t have said a word! To be sure, I don’t like malaga.”

“Bless my soul, my dear Bertrand, I am not scolding you! You know well enough that I make no secret of my follies, even to those who might have ground for complaint. It’s a mere matter of an amourette or two, a little fooling.”

“All the same, lieutenant, I am seriously embarrassed, on my word, being forever questioned by this one and that one. One calls me her little Bertrand, another her true friend—and these ladies are all very attractive——”

“Ah! monsieur le caporal has noticed that!”

“Parbleu, lieutenant, I have eyes just like other men, and if my heart don’t take fire as easily as yours, that don’t mean that it’s invulnerable. And when I see one of those ladies put her handkerchief to her eyes, when I hear your neighbor throw herself into an armchair and say that she’s going to faint; and when Mademoiselle Virginie cries that she will perish,—why, I don’t know where I am. I run from one to the other, offer them salts and eau-de-vie, tear my hair, and sometimes I even cry with them. Let me tell you that I’d rather assault a fortress six times than be present at one of those scenes, on my honor!”

“Ha! ha! ha! Poor Bertrand!”

“Of course, you laugh; it don’t make any difference to you how much you are called traitor, perfidious villain, savage, monster, cruel wretch!”

“Those are terms of endearment; in a young woman’s mouth those words mean: ‘You are charming, I love you, I adore you!’”

“Oho! so ‘monster!’ means ‘you are charming,’ does it? That makes a difference, lieutenant; I couldn’t be expected to guess that; now I understand. But these tears that you are responsible for—do they also mean that you are considered charming?”

“Oh! do you suppose, my old friend, that in love-affairs tears are always sincere?”

“In a great flood, lieutenant, there may happen to be one honest one; and it seems to me that a man ought to be sorry for the suffering he causes a pretty girl.”

“I promise to reform, Bertrand, to be more virtuous in the future! Is it possible that you think that I, who adore that charming sex, I, whose whole happiness depends on making myself attractive to