Next week Raynal called on the baroness. She received him alone. They
talked about Madame Raynal. The next day he dined with the whole party,
and the commandant's manners were the opposite of what the baroness
had inculcated. But she had a strong prejudice in his favor. Had her
feelings been the other way his brusquerie would have shocked her. It
amused her. If people's hearts are with you, THAT for their heads!
He came every day for a week, chatted with the baroness, walked with the
young ladies; and when after work he came over in the evening, Rose
used to cross-examine him, and out came such descriptions of battles and
sieges, such heroism and such simplicity mixed, as made the evening pass
delightfully. On these occasions the young ladies fixed their glowing
eyes on him, and drank in his character as well as his narrative, in
which were fewer "I's" than in anything of the sort you ever read or
heard.
At length Rose contrived to draw him aside, and, hiding her curiosity
under feigned nonchalance, asked him what the referee had decided. He
told her that was a secret for the present.
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