As he spoke, he took Louis by the arm and
by a gesture invited him to precede him upstairs with a suggestion
of camaraderie somewhat startling in one usually so cold and formal
as Antoine Sebastian, the dancing-master of the Frauengasse.
"I was writing to Charles," said Desiree to D'Arragon, when they
reached the drawing-room, and, crossing to her own table, she set
the papers in order there. These consisted of a number of letters
from her husband, read and re-read, it would appear. And the answer
to them, a clean sheet of paper bearing only the date and address,
lay beneath her hand.
"The courier leaves this evening," she said, with a queer ring of
anxiety in her voice, as if she feared that for some reason or
another she ran the risk of failing to despatch her letter. She
glanced at the clock, and stood, pen in hand, thinking of what she
should write.
"May I enclose a line?" asked Louis. "It is not wise, perhaps, for
me to address to him a letter--since I am on the other side. It is
a small matter of a heritage which he and I divide. I have placed
some money in a Dantzig bank for him. He may require it when he
returns."
"Then you do not correspond with Charles?" said Mathilde, clearing a
space for him on the larger table, and setting before him ink and
pens and paper.
"Thank you, Mademoiselle," he said, glancing at her with that light
of interest in his dark eyes which she had ignited once before by a
question on the only occasion that they had met.
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