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.