the lawyer told him of the priest's manoeuvre,
and advised him to break with Sylvie and marry Pierrette, he certainly
flattered Gouraud's foible; but after analyzing the inner purpose of
that advice and examining the ground all about him, the colonel thought
he perceived in his ally the intention of separating him from Sylvie,
and profiting by her fears to throw the whole Rogron property into the
hands of Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf.

Therefore, when the colonel was left alone with Sylvie his perspicacity
possessed itself immediately of certain signs which betrayed her
uneasiness. He saw at once that she was under arms and had made this
plan for seeing him alone. As he already suspected Vinet of playing
him some trick, he attributed the conference to the instigation of the
lawyer, and was instantly on his guard, as he would have been in an
enemy's country,--with an eye all about him, an ear to the faintest
sound, his mind on the qui vive, and his hand on a weapon. The colonel
had the defect of never believing a single word said to him by a woman;
so that when the old maid brought Pierrette on the scene, and told him
she had gone to bed before midday, he concluded that Sylvie had locked
her up by way of punishment and out of jealousy.

"She is getting to be quite pretty, that little thing," he said with an
easy air.

"She will be pretty," replied Mademoiselle Rogron.

"You ought to send her to Paris and put her in a shop," continued the
colonel. "She would make her fortune. The milliners all want pretty
girls."

"Is that really your advice?" asked Sylvie, in a troubled voice.

"Good!" thought the colonel, "I was right. Vinet advised me to marry
Pierrette just to spoil my chance with the old harridan. But," he said
aloud, "what else can you do with her? There's that beautiful
girl Bathilde de Chargeboeuf, noble and well-connected, reduced to
single-blessedness,--nobody will have her. Pierrette has nothing, and
she'll never marry. As for beauty, what is it? To me, for example, youth
and beauty are nothing; for haven't I been a captain of cavalry in the
imperial guard, and carried my spurs into all the capitals of Europe,
and known all the handsomest women of these capitals? Don't talk to
me; I tell you youth and beauty are devilishly common and silly. At
forty-eight," he went on, adding a few years to his age, to match
Sylvie's, "after surviving the retreat from Moscow and going through
that terrible campaign of Fr