The three men went up and were ushered into the finest room of the inn, in which the Officer received them, stretched on an armchair, his feet resting on the mantelpiece, and smoking a long porcelain pipe, wrapped in a flamboyant dressing-robe, no doubt stolen from the abandoned residence of some bourgeois lacking in taste. He did not get up, neither did he greet them nor look at them. He was a magnificent specimen of the insolence natural to victorious soldiers. After a few seconds, he said in his defective French: --"What do you want?" The Count spoke:--"We wish to continue our journey, Sir." --"No!" --"May I inquire what is the reason for this refusal?" --"Because I don't want." --"I would respectfully call your attention to the fact, Sir, that your General in chief has delivered us a permit to go to Dieppe, and I don't think we did anything to deserve your rigors." --"I don't want to let you go, that is all; you may retire!" Having bowed, all three retired. They spent a wretched afternoon. They could not in any way account for this German's caprice, and the most singular ideas worried their heads. Everybody stayed in the kitchen and there was endless discussion imagining the most unlikely things. Perhaps they wanted to hold them as hostages--but for what object?--or take them away as prisoners? or, rather, demand from them a large ransom? at this thought they became panic-stricken. The wealthiest were the most alarmed, seeing themselves already compelled, in order to redeem their lives, to pour bags of gold into the hands of this insolent soldier. They racked their brains to find plausible and acceptable lies, conceal their wealth, pass themselves off as very poor, very poor. Loiseau took off his watch and chain and hid it in his pocket. The approaching night filled them with apprehension.--The lamp was lighted, and as they still had fully two hours before dinner, Madame Loiseau proposed a game of "trente-et-un." That would be a diversion. They accepted. Even Cornudet, having put out his pipe, joined the party out of politeness. The Count shuffled the cards and dealt; Boule de Suif had a full thirty-one; and soon the interest in the game quieted the fears that were haunting the minds. But Cornudet noticed that the Loiseau couple had arranged to cheat. As they were going to sit down to dinner, Mr. Follenvie reappeared, and with his grating voice announced: "The Prussian Officer sends me to ask Mlle. Elizabeth Rousset whether she has changed her mind?" Boule de Suif stood still, pale as death. Then turning suddenly crimson, she felt so suffocated by anger that she could not speak. Finally she gasped out: "You will please tell that scoundrel, that rascal, that carrion of a Prussian, that I shall never consent; you understand, never, never, never!"