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"Well, General?" said Valmond. "Sire," said the old man, "they mock us in the streets. Come to the window, sire." The "sire," fell on the ears of Madame Chalice like a mot in a play; but Valmond, living up to his part, was grave and solicitous. He walked to the window, and the old man said: "Sire, do you not hear a drum?" A faint rat-tat came up the road. Valmond bowed.
Sitting very straight, Valmond rode steadily down towards the old soldier. The sergeant had drawn notice as he came up the street, and people came to their doors, and children followed the grey, dust-covered veteran, in his last-century uniform. He came as far as the Louis Quinze, and then, looking on up the road, he saw the white horse, the cocked hat, the white waistcoat, and the long grey coat.
He happened to be riding into the village at one end as Sergeant Lagroin entered it at the other, each going towards the Louis Quinze. Valmond knew nothing of Sergeant Lagroin, so that what followed was of the inspiration of the moment.
A false note in the proceedings, a mismove on the part of Valmond, would easily have made the thing ridiculous; but even to Madame Chalice, with her keen artistic sense, it had a pathetic sort of dignity, by virtue of its rude earnestness, its raw sincerity. She involuntarily thought of the great Napoleon and his toy kingdom of Elba, of Garibaldi and his handful of patriots.
The old sergeant stood silent, his eyes full fixed upon Valmond. In a moment the boy came out with the drum. Valmond took it, and, holding it in his hands, said softly: "Soldier of the Old Guard, here is a drum of France." Without a word the old man took the drum, his fingers trembling as he fastened it to his belt.
As Valmond entered the garden, Madame Chalice was leaning over the lower half of the entrance door, which opened latitudinally, and was hung on large iron hinges of quaint design, made by some seventeenth-century forgeron. Behind her deepened hospitably the spacious hall, studded and heavy beamed, with its unpainted pine ceiling toned to a good brown by smoke and time.
Breakfast with me on Sunday, and perhaps I will tell you why at twelve o'clock." She drove on, but, meeting the Cure, stopped her carriage. "Why so grave, my dear Cure?" she asked, holding out her hand. He fingered the gold cross upon his breast she had given it to him two years before. "I am going to counsel him Monsieur Valmond," he said.
"She must be told." "I will tell her that you killed him. Leave it to me all to me, my grand seigneur." A half-hour afterwards the avocat, the Cure, and the Little Chemist, had heard the story as the dwarf told it, and Valmond returned to the Louis Quinze a hero. For hours the habitants gathered under his window and cheered him.
You have warned; let me prophesy. His Highness Valmond Napoleon will come out of this with more honour than yourself." "Thanks to you, then," he said gallantly, for he admired her very stubbornness. "Thanks to himself. I honestly believe that you will be ashamed of your part in this, one day." "In any case, I will force the matter to a conclusion," he answered firmly.
Valmond did not see the little man, but swung away down the dusty road, reciting to himself couplets from 'Le Vieux Drapeau': "Oh, come, my flag, come, hope of mine, And thou shalt dry these fruitless tears;" and apparently, without any connection, he passed complacently to an entirely different song: "She loved to laugh, she loved to drink, I bought her jewels fine."
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