"
They spoke together thus in confidence, in the language of that same
sunny land. But when Sebastian turned again to the old lady, still
recalling the details of that other wedding, he addressed her in
German, offering his arm with a sudden stiffness of gesture which he
seemed to put on with the change of tongue.
They passed up the low time-worn steps arm-in-arm, and beneath the
high carved doorway, whereon some pious Hanseatic merchant had
inscribed his belief that if God be in the house there is no need of
a watchman, emphasizing his creed by bolts and locks of enormous
strength, and bars to every window.
The servant in her Samland Sunday dress, having shaken her fist at
the children, closed the door behind the last guest, and, so far as
the Frauengasse was concerned, the exciting incident was over. From
the open window came only the murmur of quiet voices, the clink of
glasses at the drinking of a toast, or a laugh in the clear voice of
the bride herself. For Desiree persisted in her optimistic view of
these proceedings, though her husband scarcely helped her now at
all, and seemed a different man since the passage through the
Pfaffengasse of that dusty travelling carriage which had played the
part of the stormy petrel from end to end of Europe.
CHAPTER II. A CAMPAIGNER.
Not what I am, but what I Do, is my Kingdom.
Desiree had made all her own wedding-clothes. "Her poor little
marriage-basket," she called it.
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