good (with unlimited tobacco) to which his Germanic soul aspired; and for
the sake of peace in the present he was content to hazard his daughter's
happiness in the future.

"_That_ is very brilliant," he said of M. Paul de Nerague, the young
lieutenant of light cavalry; "but it is not solid, like Gustave. Your son
is honest, candid--a brave heart. It is for that I would have given him
Madelon. But it is Providence which disposes of us, as our good father
St. Velours tells us often; and one must be content. Young Nerague
pleases my daughter, and I must swallow him, though for me he smells too
strong of the barracks: _ca flaire la caserne, mon ami_."

That odour of the barracks which distinguished the sub-lieutenant Paul de
Nerague became more odious after his marriage with the virtuous Madelon,
when he was established--_niche_, as he himself called it--in very
comfortable, though somewhat gruesome, apartments at Cotenoir. His
riotous deportment, his hospitable disposition (as displayed in the
frequent entertainment of his brothers-in-arms at the expense of his
father-in-law), his Don Juan-like demeanour in relation to the housemaids
and kitchen-wenches of the chateau--innocent enough in the main, but on
that account so much the more audacious--struck terror to the hearts of
Madame Frehlter and her daughter; and the elder lady was much gratified
by that thirst for foreign territory which carried the greater part of
the French army and the regiment of the vivacious Paul to the distant
wilds of Algeria.

The virtuous Madelon was too stolid to weep for her husband. But even her
stolidity was not proof against the fiery influence of jealousy, and,
waking and sleeping, her visions were of veiled damsels of Orient
assailing the too inflammable heart of Lieutenant de Nerague.