“Mon cher Delassus, are you for this policy of reprisals?”
The doctor looked up as though startled out of a train of thought.
“Mon commandant, it is a subject on which I dare not let myself think.”
There was something so harsh in his tone that neither of his companions could continue their banter. Both looked at the doctor. They knew little or nothing of his private life, for he had joined the battalion only just prior to the armistice, but evidently it contained a tragedy the memory of which they had unwittingly revived. Both maintained a respectful silence for a few moments. Then the adjutant rose and went out of the room. He called out to them from the Salon that a splendid fire awaited them, and the others rose from the table also.
The battalion-commander laid his hand affectionately upon the doctor’s shoulder.
“Mon cher,” he said, “forgive me if I have unconsciously wounded sacred sentiments.”
The doctor pressed the hand that was extended to him. They went together across the hall into the Salon.
A blazing wood fire fitfully lit up a large room still without other means of illumination. Jordan explained that he had sent an orderly for some candles, as Madame had no petroleum for the lamps. The battalion-commander and the doctor threw themselves luxuriously into deep armchairs on either side of the fireplace and lit their cigars. In a few minutes the orderly arrived with the candles. Jordan fitted them into two large candelabra on the mantelpiece and lit them.
The eyes of all three officers roved around the apartment. It was, like the dining-room, rather overfurnished and was particularly rich in bric-à-brac of all kinds. It was, in fact, overcrowded with porcelain figures, small mirrors, pictures of moderate size, all sorts of valuable objects that in almost every case were of easily portable dimensions. This last attribute leaped simultaneously to the minds of two of them.
“Mon commandant,” began Jordan, in a humorously affected judicial tone, “I am penetrated by an unworthy suspicion——!”