"Come, march on!" he added. "If you sit still you are lost."
"How can I, Philippe? It is an old magisterial habit to sit still. On
my honor! I'm tired out-- If I had only killed a hare!"
The two men presented a rather rare contrast: the public functionary
was forty-two years of age and seemed no more than thirty, whereas the
soldier was thirty, and seemed forty at the least. Both wore the red
rosette of the officers of the Legion of honor. A few spare locks of
black hair mixed with white, like the wing of a magpie, escaped from
the colonel's cap, while handsome brown curls adorned the brow of the
statesman. One was tall, gallant, high-strung, and the lines of his
pallid face showed terrible passions or frightful griefs. The other
had a face that was brilliant with health, and jovially worth of an
epicurean. Both were deeply sun-burned, and their high gaiters of
tanned leather showed signs of the bogs and the thickets they had just
come through.
"Come," said Monsieur de Sucy, "let us get on. A short hour's march,
and we shall reach Cassan in time for a good dinner."
"It is easy to see you have never loved," replied the councillor, with
a look that was pitifully comic; "you are as relentless as article 304
of the penal code.
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