"I thank you, Claviers," he said. "If you hadn't remounted us, the sub-prefect would have telegraphed. The command would have been turned over to me, and I don't know whether I should have had your courage, on which I congratulate you." "One doesn't congratulate an officer on having broken his sword," retorted the other with a brusqueness which disconcerted Vigouroux. "If that's how he feels," he thought, as he watched Landri walk away from the barracks at the rapid pace of one who would be alone, "why did he do what he did? He rarely goes to mass. He adores the profession. He has no political opinions.--It's inconceivable! There must be a petticoat underneath it all.--Aha! I have it. He seemed to be very much in love down here with poor Olier's little wife, who's a finished bigot. She wants to get married, parbleu! She's in Paris. She must have heard of the thing from her friend Julie Despois, and have made a bargain with my poor Claviers.--Decidedly, Lieutenant Vigouroux, the best thing for us is not to care too much for pretty women." With this aphorism of practical sagacity, this other, more inoffensive, philosopher, bent his steps, no less hurriedly, toward the mess. He had eight hours of horseback in his limbs, and he was of those fortunate folk whom excitement makes hollow. This judgment of an exceedingly honest but exceedingly commonplace youth supplemented that of the jovial prefect. Thus it is that the painful dramas of our lives are enacted before the unintelligent eyes of half-informed witnesses. There are cases in which the sufferer prefers that sort. They assure him of secrecy at least, and it was secrecy that Landri craved, it was lack of comprehension. But who could have divined the real explanation of a sudden change of purpose at which he was himself confounded--that irresistible and passionate movement of the heart toward the most generous of men. And now, seated, crouching rather, on one of the easy chairs in his apartment, he waited. As if he had already resigned, instead of making the report to his captain, called for by the regulations, he had written a note to the colonel in person to inform him of the manner in which his mission had ended. In what shape would he be dealt with? Withdrawn from active service, dismissed on half-pay, cashiered--so many synonyms to his mind of a single phrase, with which he had replied so bitterly to Vigouroux's warm and inopportune grasp of the hand: he had broken his sword. He no longer belonged to the army except for the purpose of undergoing the last rigors of a discipline which he had knowingly violated.