... After all, colonel, this fact is the very bottom of this
affair. Here you've got it. The rest is a mere detail...."
The colonel stopped short. The reputation of Lieutenant D'Hubert for
good sense and good temper weighed in the balance. A cool head, a warm
heart, open as the day. Always correct in his behaviour. One had to
trust him. The colonel repressed manfully an immense curiosity.
"H'm! You affirm that as a man and an officer.... No option? Eh?"
"As an officer, an officer of the Fourth Hussars, too," repeated
Lieutenant D'Hubert, "I had not. And that is the bottom of the affair,
colonel."
"Yes. But still I don't see why to one's colonel... A colonel is a
father--_que diable_."
Lieutenant D'Hubert ought not to have been allowed out as yet. He
was becoming aware of his physical insufficiency with humiliation and
despair--but the morbid obstinacy of an invalid possessed him--and at
the same time he felt, with dismay, his eyes filling with water. This
trouble seemed too big to handle. A tear fell down the thin, pale cheek
of Lieutenant D'Hubert. The colonel turned his back on him hastily. You
could have heard a pin drop.
"This is some silly woman story--is it not?"
The chief spun round to seize the truth, which is not a beautiful shape
living in a well but a shy bird best caught by stratagem. This was
the last move of the colonel's diplomacy, and he saw the truth shining
unmistakably in the gesture of Lieutenant D'Hubert, raising his weak
arms and his eyes to heaven in supreme protest.
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