General Laguerre seemed pleased with that, and I believe he was really interested in helping me to clear myself. But he had raised my temper by questioning my word.
“Surely you must have something to identify you,” he urged.
“If I had I’d refuse to show it,” I answered. “I told you why I came here. If you think I am a spy, you can go ahead and shoot me as a spy, and find out whether I told you the truth afterward.”
The General smiled indulgently.
“There would be very little satisfaction in that for me, or for you,” he said.
“I’m an officer and a gentleman,” I protested, “and I have a right to be treated as one. If you serve every gentleman who volunteers to join you in the way I have been served, I’m not surprised that your force is composed of the sort you have around you.”
The General raised his head and looked at me with such a savage expression that during the pause which ensued I was most uncomfortable.
“If your proofs you are an officer are no stronger than those you offer that you are a gentleman,” he said, “perhaps you are wise not to show them. What right have you to claim you are an officer?”
His words cut and mortified me deeply, chiefly because I felt I deserved them.
“Every cadet ranks a non-commissioned man,” I answered.