"Something must be done. The patron will do nothing; he is in the
clouds, he is dreaming dreams of a new France, that bourgeois. I am
an old man. Yes, I will go to Zoppot."
"You mean that we should have heard from Charles before now," said
Desiree.
"Name of thunder! he may be in Paris!" exclaimed Barlasch, with the
sudden anger that anxiety commands. "He is on the staff, I tell
you."
For suspense is one of the most contagious of human emotions, and
makes a quicker call upon our sympathy than any other. Do we not
feel such a desire that our neighbour may know the worst without
delay, that we race to impart it to him?
Nor was Desiree alone in the trial which had drawn certain lines
about her gay lips; for Mathilde had told her father and sister that
should Colonel de Casimir return from the war he would ask her hand
in marriage.
"And that other--the Colonel," added Barlasch, glancing at Mathilde,
"he is on the staff too. They are safe enough, I tell you that.
They are doubtless together. They were together at Moscow. I saw
them, and took an order from them. They were . . . at their work."
Mathilde did not like Papa Barlasch. She would, it seemed, rather
have no news at all of de Casimir than learn it from the old
soldier, for she quitted the room without even troubling to throw
him a glance of disdain.
Barlasch waited with working lips until the sound of her footsteps
ceased on the stairs.
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