I am good for that.
My name is Jean Falcon, otherwise called Beau-Pied, sergeant of the
first company of Hulot's veterans, seventy-second half-brigade,
nicknamed 'Les Mayencais.' Excuse my vanity; I can only offer you the
soul of a sergeant, but that's at your service."
He turned on his heel and walked off whistling.
"The lower one goes in social life," said Marie, bitterly, "the more
we find generous feelings without display. A marquis returns death for
life, and a poor sergeant--but enough of that."
When the weary woman was at last in a warm bed, her faithful Francine
waited in vain for the affectionate good-night to which she was
accustomed; but her mistress, seeing her still standing and evidently
uneasy, made her a sign of distress.
"This is called a day, Francine," she said; "but I have aged ten years
in it."
The next morning, as soon as she had risen, Corentin came to see her
and she admitted him.
"Francine," she exclaimed, "my degradation is great indeed, for the
thought of that man is not disagreeable to me."
Still, when she saw him, she felt once more, for the hundredth time,
the instinctive repulsion which two years' intercourse had increased
rather than lessened.
"Well," he said, smiling, "I felt certain you were succeeding. Was I
mistaken? did you get hold of the wrong man?"
"Corentin," she replied, with a dull look of pain, "never mention that
affair to me unless I speak of it myself.
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