"He is right—the man is right—and by heaven, I respect him!" Urbain said to himself as he crossed the square.
Passing near the great gate of the Prefecture, he noticed a police officer loitering on the pavement, whose dark, keen, discontented face seemed not unknown to him.
As Urbain came nearer, this man raised his hand to his cap, and spoke with an impudent grin.
"Monsieur de la Marinière has been making peace with Monsieur le Général Ratoneau? It was a difficult matter, I bet! Monsieur has been successful?"
Urbain looked at the man steadily. He was not easily made angry.
"Who are you, my friend? and what do you mean?" he said.
"I am Simon, the police agent, monsieur. The affair rather interested me. I was there."
"What affair?"
"Your son's affair with the General. That droll adventure of the cattle in the lane—your cattle, monsieur, and it was your son's fault that the General was thrown. Monsieur heard of it, surely?"
"You are mistaken," Monsieur Urbain replied quietly. "It was an accident; it was not my son's fault. Nobody has ever thought of it or mentioned it since. It was nothing."