She unfolded the letter slowly, and Guida stopped sewing, but
mechanically began to prick the linen lying on her knee with the point
of the needle.

"Well," said Carterette deliberately, "this letter's from a pend'loque
of a fellow--at least, we used to call him that--though if you come to
think, he was always polite as mended porringer. Often he hadn't two
sous to rub against each other. And--and not enough buttons for his
clothes."

Guida smiled. She guessed whom Carterette meant. "Has Monsieur
Detricand more buttons now?" she asked with a little whimsical lift
of the eyebrows.

"Ah bidemme, yes, and gold too, all over him--like that!" She made a
quick sweeping gesture which would seem to make Detricand a very spangle
of buttons. "Come, what do you think--he's a general now.

"A general!" Instantly Guida thought of Philip and a kind of envy shot
into her heart that this idler Detricand should mount so high in a few
months--a man whose past had held nothing to warrant such success. "A
general--where?" she asked.

"In the Vendee army, fighting for the new King of France--you know the
rebels cut off the last King's head."

At another time Guida's heart would have throbbed with elation,
for the romance of that Vendee union of aristocrat and peasant fired her
imagination; but she only said in the tongue of the people: "Ma fuifre,
yes, I know!"