Barlasch of the Guard | Page 9

turning grey at the temples.
"I did not know," he said, turning to her, "that Charles was in Dantzig, much less that he was celebrating so happy an occasion. We ran against each other by accident in the street. It was a lucky accident that allowed me to make your acquaintance so soon after you have become his wife."
"It scarcely seems possible that it should be an accident," said Desiree. "It must have been the work of fate--if fate has time to think of such an insignificant person as myself and so small an event as my marriage in these days."
"Fate," put in Mathilde in her composed voice and manner, "has come to Dantzig to-day."
"Ah!"
"Yes. You are the second unexpected arrival this afternoon."
D'Arragon turned and looked at Mathilde. His manner, always grave and attentive, was that of a reader who has found an interesting book on a dusty shelf.
"Has the Emperor come?" he asked.
Mathilde nodded.
"I thought I saw something in Charles's face," he said reflectively, looking back through the open door towards the stairs where Charles had nodded farewell to them. "So the Emperor is here, in Dantzig?"
He turned towards Sebastian, who stood with a stony face.
"Which means war," he said.
"It always means war," replied Sebastian in a tired voice. "Is he again going to prove himself stronger than any?"
"Some day he will make a mistake," said D'Arragon cheerfully. "And then will come the day of reckoning."
"Ah!" said Sebastian, with a shake of the head that seemed to indicate an account so one-sided that none could ever liquidate it. "You are young, monsieur. You are full of hope."
"I am not young--I am thirty-one--but I am, as you say, full of hope. I look to that day, Monsieur Sebastian."
"And in the mean time?" suggested the man who seemed but a shadow of someone standing apart and far away from the affairs of daily life
"In the mean time one must play one's part," returned D'Arragon, with his almost inaudible laugh, "whatever it may be."
There was no foreboding in his voice; no second meaning in the words. He was open and simple and practical, like the life he led.
"Then you have a part to play, too," said Desiree, thinking of Charles, who had been called away at such an inopportune moment, and had gone without complaint. "It is the penalty we pay for living in one of the less dull periods of history. He touches your life too."
"He touches every one's life, mademoiselle. That is what makes him so great a man. Yes. I have a little part to play. I am like one of the unseen supernumeraries who has to see that a door is open to allow the great actors to make an effective entree. I am lent to Russia for the war that is coming. It is a little part. I have to keep open one small portion of the line of communication between England and St. Petersburg, so that news may pass to and fro."
He glanced towards Mathilde as he spoke. She was listening with an odd eagerness which he noted, as he noted everything, methodically and surely. He remembered it afterwards.
"That will not be easy, with Denmark friendly to France," said Sebastian, "and every Prussian port closed to you."
"But Sweden will help. She is not friendly to France."
Sebastian laughed, and made a gesture with his white and elegant hand, of contempt and ridicule.
"And, bon Dieu! what a friendship it is," he exclaimed, "that is based on the fear of being taken for an enemy."
"It is a friendship that waits its time, monsieur," said D'Arragon taking up his hat.
"Then you have a ship, monsieur, here in the Baltic?" asked Mathilde with more haste than was characteristic of her usual utterance.
"A very small one, mademoiselle," he answered. "So small that I could turn her round here in the Frauengasse."
"But she is fast?"
"The fastest in the Baltic, mademoiselle," he answered. "And that is why I must take my leave--with the news you have told me."
He shook hands as he spoke, and bowed to Sebastian, whose generation was content with the more formal salutation. Desiree went to the door, and led the way downstairs.
"We have but one servant," she said, "who is busy."
On the doorstep he paused for a moment. And Desiree seemed to expect him to do so.
"Charles and I have always been like brothers--you will remember that always, will you not?"
"Yes," she answered with her gay nod. "I will remember."
"Then good-bye, mademoiselle."
"Madame," she corrected lightly.
"Madame, my cousin," he said, and departed smiling.
Desiree went slowly upstairs again.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CLOUDED MOON.

Quand on se mefie on se trompe, quand on ne se mefie pas, on est trompe.
Charles Darragon had come to Dantzig a year earlier. He was a lieutenant in an infantry regiment, and he was twenty-five. Many of his contemporaries were colonels in