The wedding-guests were few in number. Only one of them had a
distinguished air, and he, like the bridegroom, wore the uniform of
France. He was a small man, somewhat brusque in attitude, as became
a soldier of Italy and Egypt. But he had a pleasant smile and that
affability of manner which many learnt in the first years of the
great Republic. He and Mathilde Sebastian never looked at each
other: either an understanding or a misunderstanding.
The host, Antoine Sebastian, played his part well enough when he
remembered that he had a part to play. He listened with a kind
attention to the story of a very old lady, who it seemed had been
married herself, but it was so long ago that the human interest of
it all was lost in a pottle of petty detail which was all she could
recall. Before the story was half finished, Sebastian's attention
had strayed elsewhere, though his spare figure remained in its
attitude of attention and polite forbearance. His mind had, it
would seem, a trick of thus wandering away and leaving his body
rigid in the last attitude that it had dictated.
Sebastian did not notice that the door was open and all the guests
were waiting for him to lead the way.
"Now, old dreamer," whispered Desiree, with a quick pinch on his
arm, "take the Grafin upstairs to the drawing-room and give her
wine. You are to drink our healths, remember."
"Is there wine?" he asked with a vague smile. "Where has it come
from?"
"Like other good things, my father-in-law," replied Charles with his
easy laugh, "it comes from France.
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