And he left the room.

"What an impudent scoundrel!" said the Prince.

Marshal Hulot, who had stood up throughout this scene, as pale as a
corpse, studying his brother out of the corner of his eye, went up to
the Prince, and took his hand, repeating:

"In forty-eight hours the pecuniary mischief shall be repaired; but
honor!--Good-bye, Marshal. It is the last shot that kills. Yes, I
shall die of it!" he said in his ear.

"What the devil brought you here this morning?" said the Prince, much
moved.

"I came to see what can be done for his wife," replied the Count,
pointing to his brother. "She is wanting bread--especially now!"

"He has his pension."

"It is pledged!"

"The Devil must possess such a man," said the Prince, with a shrug.
"What philtre do those baggages give you to rob you of your wits?" he
went on to Hulot d'Ervy. "How could you--you, who know the precise
details with which in French offices everything is written down at
full length, consuming reams of paper to certify to the receipt or
outlay of a few centimes--you, who have so often complained that a
hundred signatures are needed for a mere trifle, to discharge a
soldier, to buy a curry-comb--how could you hope to conceal a theft
for any length of time? To say nothing of the newspapers, and the
envious, and the people who would like to steal!--those women must rob
you of your common-sense! Do they cover your eyes with walnut-shells?
or are you yourself made of different stuff from us?--You ought to
have left the office as soon as you found that you were no longer a
man, but a temperament. If you have complicated your crime with such
gross folly, you will end--I will not say where----"

"Promise me, Cottin, that you will do what you can for her," said the
Marshal, who heard nothing, and was still thinking of his
sister-in-law.

"Depend on me!" said the Minister.

"Thank you, and good-bye then!--Come, monsieur," he said to his
brother.

The Prince looked with apparent calmness at the two brothers, so
different in their demeanor, conduct, and character--the brave man and
the coward, the ascetic and the profligate, the honest man and the
peculator--and he said to himself:

"That mean creature will not have courage to die! And my poor Hulot,
such an honest fellow! has death in his knapsack, I know!"

He sat down again in his big chair and went on reading the despatches
from Africa with a look characteristic at once of the coolness of a
l