Alice had taken up her bouquet of orchids and was smelling it, half hiding her paleness. At last Isabelle, giving full vent to the uneasiness which had tortured her for the last few minutes, said, “And Captain Berlier? He was coming back from the Sahara too. He belonged to the same regiment as Commander Guibert. Had he gone with him to Timmimun?” Did Clément Dulaurens guess her anxiety from the tone of her voice? Too often had he suffered from her sarcastic remarks not to take a cruel pleasure in tormenting her a little now. “Yes, that is true,” he said. “Jean Berlier must have been there as well.” “Now what do you know exactly?” demanded Isabelle imperiously. “Tell us what you heard,” put in Madame Dulaurens. Annoyed at the course of the conversation, she had given up all hope of diverting it and was resigned to hearing the whole story. “Well, here you are! While they were mending my car at Cognin I went into the Café National. There were only the mayor, the schoolmaster, and three or four municipal councillors there. When they saw me they looked at me mysteriously. ‘Hallo,’ I said to them, ‘are you holding a meeting?’ ‘No, we are just chatting,’ the mayor said. And that was as far as we got.” “And then?” “That was all that concerned me. I went out, and sent my chauffeur to have a drink in his turn. He is very thick with the schoolmaster. They are both anarchists.” “Anarchists!” repeated Mademoiselle de Songeon wrathfully. “Certainly. Everybody is nowadays. It is the fashion. My chauffeur came back. ‘I know what it is,’ he said. ‘They have had a wire from the Minister about Commander Guibert’s death in Africa.’ ‘Are you sure? I said. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘He was killed by savages defending a town called Timou--Timmimun?--that’s it. Then of course they had to tell his people the news. They were very puzzled how to do it. At last they sent a policeman.’” “A policeman?” said M. Dulaurens, a stickler for legalities. “But the mayor should have taken the fatal telegram in person.” “The Guiberts are conservatives,” said M. de Lavernay. “These republicans will not trouble themselves in such cases.” “But the Guiberts are not interested in politics.” “The grandfather was a councillor, of conservative views, and the father was mayor of Cognin. That is quite enough.” Madame Dulaurens was trying to catch a glimpse of her daughter, who was separated from her by a candelabrum. Alice’s orchids were drooping under the warm rain of her tears. In the general confusion no one had seen her cry. “How did he die?” questioned one of the ladies. “At the head of his men--after the victory--with a bullet in his forehead. I quote the telegram that my man read.” “Did he receive the last sacrament?” asked Mademoiselle de Songeon shaking her grey head. The ever-correct M. Dulaurens summed up the affair. “He is a great loss to his country.”