He had resisted the temptation of dining with the officers and playing cards afterwards, though he by no means disliked either a game of chance or a good dinner. It seemed to him that he had done as much in Madame de Sainfoy's interests as she could reasonably expect. Though there might be worse men, General Ratoneau could not be called a pleasant companion. His loud voice and swaggering manners could not be agreeable to a person of Monsieur Urbain's measured mind and self-controlled ways. He was a type, and in that way interesting. The strange likeness to his master lent him a touch of character, almost of distinction, neither of which really belonged to him; yet, somehow, by a certain appeal to the imagination, it made him a just possible husband for a girl of good family. Not a gentleman, or anything like one; yet not quite the ordinary _bourgeois_. Considering the times, it appeared to Urbain that his cousin de Sainfoy need not be actually ashamed of such a son-in-law. Anyhow, he had done his best to further the matter, with an earnest recommendation to the General to keep his name out of the affair. "Why not?" said Ratoneau. "You only reminded me of what I knew before. In fact, it was through me you heard of it. I startled your brother with it; our dear Prefect would never have said a word on the subject--ha, ha! So I owe you no gratitude, monsieur. You have done nothing." "Ah, but just a little gratitude, if you please," said Urbain, smiling. "Enough to shut your ears to any reports that may reach you about my brother Joseph." Ratoneau looked at him sharply, and frowned. "I can make no bargains as to my duty, monsieur. Let your brother be loyal." "I do my utmost to make him so," said Urbain, still smiling, and they parted. "He is right--the man is right--and by heaven, I respect him!" Urbain said to himself as he crossed the square. Passing near the great gate of the Prefecture, he noticed a police officer loitering on the pavement, whose dark, keen, discontented face seemed not unknown to him. As Urbain came nearer, this man raised his hand to his cap, and spoke with an impudent grin. "Monsieur de la Marinière has been making peace with Monsieur le Général Ratoneau? It was a difficult matter, I bet! Monsieur has been successful?" Urbain looked at the man steadily. He was not easily made angry. "Who are you, my friend? and what do you mean?" he said. "I am Simon, the police agent, monsieur. The affair rather interested me. I was there." "What affair?" "Your son's affair with the General. That droll adventure of the cattle in the lane--your cattle, monsieur, and it was your son's fault that the General was thrown. Monsieur heard of it, surely?" "You are mistaken," Monsieur Urbain replied quietly. "It was an accident; it was not my son's fault. Nobody has ever thought of it or mentioned it since. It was nothing."