August succeeded a hot July and brought with it Sebastian's curt
letter. Sebastian himself--that shadowy father--returned to his
home a few hours later. He was not alone, for a heavier step
followed his into the passage, and Desiree, always quick to hear and
see and act, coming to the head of the stairs, perceived her father
looking upwards towards her, while his companion in rough sailor's
clothes turned to lay aside the valise he had carried on his
shoulder.
Mathilde was close behind Desiree, and Sebastian kissed his
daughters with that cold repression of manner which always suggested
a strenuous past in which the emotions had been relinquished for
ever as an indulgence unfit for a stern and hard-bitten age.
"I took him away and now return him," said the sailor coming
forward. Desiree had always known that it was Louis, but Mathilde
gave a little start at the sound of the neat clipping French in the
mouth of an educated Frenchman so rarely heard in Dantzig--so rarely
heard in all broad France to-day.
"Yes--that is true," answered Sebastian, turning to him with a
sudden change of manner. There was that in voice and attitude which
his hearers had never noted before, although Charles had often
evoked something approaching it. It seemed to indicate that, of all
the people with whom they had seen their father hold intercourse,
Louis d'Arragon was the only man who stood upon equality with him.
"That is true--and at great risk to yourself," he said, not
assigning, however, so great an importance to personal danger as men
do in these careful days.
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