"I should be vexed if I have hurt your feelings, Oberlé; but I cannot hide from you that I do not regret what I did. Only understand that behind my anger there is discipline, the inviolable prestige and dignity of the army of which I am a unit. Do not report the incident to your people, dear fellow, without also adding the excuse _for_ it. That would mean to betray a friend. Well, good-bye."
He held out his hand. His blue eyes lost for the moment something of their haughty indifference.
"Good-bye, Oberlé! Here is the door of your Clerk of the Forests."
Jean came back in fairly good time to the Strasburg station and took the train to Obernai, where he had left his bicycle. While going from Obernai to Alsheim he saw in the meadows through which the Dachs ran, near Bernhardsweiler, a second stork--motionless on one leg.
This was the first thing he told Lucienne, whom he met under the trees in the park. She was reading, and wore a grey linen dress with lace on the bodice. When she heard the noise of the bicycle on the gravel she lifted her intelligent eyes, smiling.
"My dear, how I have missed you. What in the world makes you go away so constantly?"
"I make discoveries, dear sister. First, I have seen two storks, arriving on the sacred day--April 23--punctual as lawyers."
A slight pout of her red lips showed that the news did not interest her much.
"I spent three hours in the offices of the Forest Conservators, where I learned that----"
"You can tell all that to father," she interrupted. "I see so much wood here, living and dead, that I have no wish to occupy my mind with it unnecessarily. Tell me some Strasburg news, or about some costumes, or some conversation you had with some one in society."
"That is true," said the young man, laughing. "I did meet some one."
"Yes; an old acquaintance of Munich, a lieutenant in the Hussars."
"Yes, the very man--Lieutenant Wilhelm von Farnow, lieutenant in the 9th Rhenish Hussars. What is the matter?"
They were halfway down the avenue, hidden by a clump of shrubs. Lucienne, bold and provoking as ever, crossed her arms and said, in a quieter tone of voice:
Jean stepped away from his sister in order to see her better.
"Why, Lucienne, because he is a German, an officer--a Prussian!"