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In the correspondence from Sergeant Berthelin there came a long hiatus followed by a curt bit of official information: "Seriously wounded." The Little Red Doctor brought the news to me, with a queer expression on his face. "It doesn't look good, Dominie," he said. "You know, my old friend, Death, is a shrewd picker. He's got an eye for men."
As the door closed, General Berthelin approached Trudaine, who had stood silent and apart, from the time when Lomaque first appeared in the drawing-room. "I wish to ask your pardon," said the old soldier, "because I have wronged you by a moment of unjust suspicion.
"Stop where you are!" he cried, addressing the old officers, who had risen from their chairs. "Stay, I insist on it! Whatever happens, Jacques Berthelin has done nothing to be ashamed of in the presence of his old friends and companions. You have seen the beginning, now stay and see the end." While he spoke, he walked into the middle of the room.
"I'm not," he gulped. "She she made me." "Captain!" said Mayme with a searing scorn in her voice. "Quartermaster's Department! Safety first! When half the little fifteen-per tape-snippers in the Emporium are breakin' their fourteen-inch necks volunteerin' early and often to get where the fightin' is." David Berthelin stood on his feet, and his pretty face wore an ugly expression.
"I'd rather see a son of mine dead than a common soldier!" cried Mrs. Berthelin. The Bonnie Lassie, very white, rose. "You must leave this house," she said. "At once. Think yourself fortunate that I cannot bring myself to betray a guest. Otherwise I should report you to the authorities." Young David addressed Mayme in the words and tone of a misunderstood and aggrieved pet. "You think I'm no good.
"You will excuse me, I know," said General Berthelin, speaking to all the persons present, with his hand on the library door, "if I leave you. I have bad news to break to my daughter, and private business after that to settle with a friend." He saluted the company, with his usual bluff nod of the head, and entered the library. A few minutes afterward, Trudaine and Lomaque left the house.
For my daughter's sake, I bitterly regret that we did not see each other long ago; but I thank you, nevertheless, for coming here, even at the eleventh hour." While he was speaking, one of his friends came up, and touching him on the shoulder, said: "Berthelin, is that scoundrel to be allowed to go?"
Where the devil was I when that cursed clock struck and interrupted us? Now then, Black Eyes, what's the matter?" This last question was addressed to Mademoiselle Berthelin, who at that moment hastily entered the library from the drawing-room.
He burst into the hectic grievances of the pampered and spoiled child. All was up. Their new, precariously held acquaintances would drop them. Samuel Berthelin, her daughter, Mrs. Harris, and her son, David, referred to glowingly as "the scion of the wealth and position of the late lamented financier." Mayme was impressed. Like most shop-girls she was a fervent reader of society news.
"'The daughter of General Berthelin an ex-aristocrat by family, like the old lady; but by principle as good a republican as ever lived a hard-drinking, loud-swearing, big-whiskered old soldier, who snaps his fingers at his ancestors and says we are all descended from Adam, the first genuine sans-culotte in the world.
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