ast--"

"What will the general do to him?" inquired the girl, anxiously.

"He won't have his head cut off, to be sure," grumbled Lieut. D'Hubert.
"His conduct is positively indecent. He's making no end of trouble for
himself by this sort of bravado."

"But he isn't parading the town," the maid insisted in a shy murmur.

"Why, yes! Now I think of it, I haven't seen him anywhere about. What on
earth has he done with himself?"

"He's gone to pay a call," suggested the maid, after a moment of
silence.

Lieut. D'Hubert started.

"A call! Do you mean a call on a lady? The cheek of the man! And how do
you know this, my dear?"

Without concealing her woman's scorn for the denseness of the masculine
mind, the pretty maid reminded him that Lieut. Feraud had arrayed
himself in his best uniform before going out. He had also put on his
newest dolman, she added, in a tone as if this conversation were getting
on her nerves, and turned away brusquely.

Lieut. D'Hubert, without questioning the accuracy of the deduction, did
not see that it advanced him much on his official quest. For his quest
after Lieut. Feraud had an official character. He did not know any of
the women this fellow, who had run a man through in the morning, was
likely to visit in the afternoon. The two young men knew each other but
slightly. He bit his gloved finger in perplexity.

"Call!" he exclaimed. "Call on the devil!"

The girl, with her back to him, and folding the hussars breeches on a
chair, protested with a vexed little laugh:

"Oh, dear, no! On Madame de Lionne."

Lieut. D'Hubert whistled softly. Madame de Lionne was the wife of a high
official who had a well-known salon and some pretensions to sensibility
and elegance. The husband was a civilian, and old; but the society of
the salon was young and military. Lieut. D'Hubert had whistled, not
because the idea of pursuing Lieut. Feraud into that very salon was
disagreeable to him, but because, having arrived in Strasbourg only
lately, he had not had the time as yet to get an introduction to
Madame de Lionne. And what was that swashbuckler Feraud doing there, he
wondered. He did not seem the sort of man who--

"Are you certain of what you say?" asked Lieut. D'Hubert.

The girl was perfectly certain. Without turning round to look at him,
she explained that the coachman of their next door neighbours knew the
maitre-d'hotel of Madame de Lionne. In this way she had her information.
And she was p