Roland gazed at Le Sourd. There was no reason for him to invent such a thing. He stared away, into the middle distance.

Was it possible that this was the reason his father had always been unwilling to discuss that period in his life? Had the memory of the execution haunted him? Might it even have caused him, ultimately, to resign his commission? If so, his father had taken that secret to the grave.

But even if such thoughts entered his mind, Roland was far too proud to share them with Le Sourd.

“And this would give you the right to murder me?”

“Tell me, Monsieur de Cygne, do you believe in God?”

“Of course.”

“Well, I do not,” said Le Sourd. “So I have not the luxury of imagining that there is an afterlife. When your father murdered mine, he took away everything he had. Everything.”

“Then I am glad I believe in God, monsieur. And I assume, not being a Christian, that you believe in revenge.”

“Isn’t it true that many Christian officers, men of honor, believe their duty is to avenge the loss of Alsace-Lorraine?”

“Some.”

“What’s the difference? Call my wish to kill you a debt of honor.”

“But you have not come out into the open and done it, as a man of honor would.”

“I will not put more important matters at risk just to secure your death. You are not significant enough.”

“How fortunate,” said Roland drily. “I assume that the important matters you speak of are political in nature.”

“Of course.”

“Yet in the last thirty years,” Roland remarked, “the radical parties have achieved so many of their aims.” He ticked some of them off. “There is little chance of either a monarchy or a Bonapartist military government. Every man has the vote. There is free public education for every boy and girl—I may not see the necessity, but it is so. And education is in the hands of the state, not of the Church. Even the traditional independence of the ancient regions of France, it seems to me, is being eroded by your bureaucrats in Paris. As one who loves France, this also saddens me. But all these changes are not enough for you?”

“They are a beginning. That is all.”

“Then perhaps you are part of the Workers’ International.” It was two years now since the left wing of France’s conventional radicals had formally split away to form the French Section of the Workers’ International. “You will only be content with a socialist revolution, whatever that may mean.”

“You are correct.”

Roland looked at him thoughtfully. Le Sourd was dedicated to everything he despised. He would oppose him and his kind in every way he could. Yet to his surprise he did not hate him. Perhaps the very fact that the fellow wished to avenge his father’s death made him seem human.