"_Entrez_, mademoiselle. He will see you."
The red-haired lieutenant with pince-nez was upon his feet looking at
her curiously as she entered the adjoining room.
"Good morning, mademoiselle. There is something wrong with the billet
that I found you yesterday?"
She looked at him. In his pale-blue eyes there was a beam; in his
creased mouth there was an upward curve. The story of legitimate
complaint that she had prepared drooped in her mind; she looked at
him a little longer, hesitated, then, risking everything:
"Monsieur, there is a stuffed owl in the room."
He did not wince. "Take it out, mademoiselle."
"H'm, yes. I cannot see heaven except through orange glass."
"Open the window."
"It is fixed."
Then he failed her; he was a busy, sensible man.
"Mademoiselle, I find you a billet, I instal you, and you come to me in
the middle of the morning with this ridiculous story of an owl. It isn't
reasonable...."
The door opened and his superior officer walked in, a stern captain with
no crease about his mouth, no beam in his olive eye.
Ah, now ... Now the lieutenant had but to turn to his superior officer
and she would indeed be rent, and reasonably so.
"What is the matter?" said the newcomer. "Is something fresh needed?"
The billeting lieutenant never hesitated a second.
"_Mon capitaine_, unfortunately the billet found yesterday for this lady
is unsuitable.
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