Part 3 (1/2)

”I will not have you think such bloodthirsty thoughts on my wedding-day,” said Desiree. ”See, there is Charles returning already, and he has not been absent ten minutes. He has some one with him--who is it? Papa... Mathilde, look! Who is it coming back with Charles in such a hurry?”

Mathilde, who was setting the room in order, glanced through the lace curtains.

”I do not know,” she answered indifferently. ”Just an ordinary man.”

Desiree had turned away from the window as if to go downstairs and meet her husband. She paused and looked back again over her shoulder towards the street.

”Is it?” she said rather oddly. ”I do not know--I--”

And she stood with the incompleted sentence on her lips waiting irresolutely for Charles to come upstairs.

In a moment he burst into the room with all his usual exuberance and high spirit.

”Picture to yourselves!” he cried, standing in the doorway with his arms extended before him. ”I was hurrying to head-quarters when I ran into the embrace of my dear Louis--my cousin. I have told you a hundred times that he is brother and father and everything to me. I am so glad that he should come to-day of all days.”

He turned towards the stairs with a gesture of welcome, still with his two arms outheld, as if inviting the man, who came rather slowly upstairs, to come to his embrace and to the embrace of those who were now his relations.

”There was a little suspicion of sadness--I do not know what it was--at the table; but now it is all gone. All is well now that this unexpected guest has come. This dear Louis.”

He went to the landing as he spoke, and returned bringing by the arm a man taller than himself and darker, with a still brown face and steady eyes set close together. He had a lean look of good breeding.

”This dear Louis!” repeated Charles. ”My only relative in all the world.

My cousin, Louis d'Arragon. But he, par exemple, spells his name in two words.”

The man bowed gravely--a comprehensive bow; but he looked at Desiree.

”This is my father-in-law,” continued Charles breathlessly. ”Monsieur Antoine Sebastian, and Desiree and Mathilde--my wife, my dear Louis--your cousin, Desiree.”

He had turned again to Louis and shook him by the shoulders in the fulness of his joy. He had not distinguished between Mathilde and Desiree, and it was towards Mathilde that D'Arragon looked with a polite and rather formal repet.i.tion of his bow.

”It is I... I am Desiree,” said the younger sister, coming forward with a slow gesture of shyness.

D'Arragon took her hand.

”I have been happy,” he said, ”in the moment of my arrival.”

Then he turned to Mathilde and bowed over the hand she held out to him.

Sebastian had come forward with a sudden return of his gracious and rather old-world manner. He did not offer to shake hands, but bowed.

”A son of Louis d'Arragon who was fortunate enough to escape to England?” he inquired with a courteous gesture.

”The only son,” replied the new-comer.

”I am honoured to make the acquaintance of Monsieur le Marquis,” said Antoine Sebastian slowly.

”Oh, you must not call me that,” replied D'Arragon with a short laugh.

”I am an English sailor--that is all.”

”And now, my dear Louis, I leave you,” broke in Charles, who had rather impatiently awaited the end of these formalities. ”A brief half-hour and I am with you again. You will stay here till I return.”