Page:Novels of Honoré de Balzac Volume 23.djvu/251

 arrived from Toulon by the mail-coach for Ursule’s birthday and at the same time to seek the doctor’s advice.

“He has come!” cried the goddaughter rushing into her godfather’s room.

“All right,” he replied, “I can guess the motive which has made him leave the service, and he can now remain in Nemours.”

“Ah! it is my birthday; it is all in that word,” she said, kissing the doctor.

At a sign she went to make to him, Savinien came at once; she wanted to admire him, for she thought he seemed improved. In fact, military service stamps the gestures, the bearing and appearance of men with decision mingled with gravity, an indefinable uprightness which enables the most superficial observer to recognize a military man under the bourgeois coat; there is no better proof that a man is made to command. Ursule loved Savinien still better for it, and felt a childish delight in walking up and down the little garden on his arm, making him relate the share he had had, in his character of naval cadet, in the capture of Algiers. Obviously, Savinien had taken Algiers. She saw everything red, she said, when she was looking at Savinien’s decoration. The doctor, who was watching them from his room whilst dressing, came to join them. Without entirely unbosoming himself to the viscount, he then told him that in case Madame de Portenduère should consent to his marriage with Ursule, his goddaughter’s fortune