“What was his name?” said the cantinière.
“I gave my word,” said Fabrizio.
“He’s right,” said the corporal. “The gendarme was a blackguard, but our comrade mustn’t tell his name. And what was the name of the captain who married your sister? If we knew his name we might find him.”
“Teulier, of the Fourth Hussars,” answered our hero.
“Then,” said the corporal rather sharply, “your foreign accent made the soldiers take you for a spy?”
“That’s the vile word!” cried Fabrizio, and his eyes flamed. “I, who worship the Emperor and the French—that insult hurts me more than anything!”
“There’s no insult; there’s where you’re mistaken,” replied the corporal gravely. “The soldiers’ mistake was very natural.”
Then he explained, with more than a little pedantry, that in the army every man must belong to a regiment and wear a uniform, and, failing that, would certainly be taken for a spy.
“The enemy,” he said, “has sent us heaps of them. In this war traitors abound.”