Sebastian
glanced at her sharply. She was usually so self-controlled that her
flashing eyes and quick breath betrayed her.
"What do you know of the Tugendbund?" he asked.
But she would not answer, merely shrugging her shoulders and closing
her thin lips with a snap.
"It is not only in Dantzig," said Sebastian, "that they are unsafe.
It is anywhere where the Tugendbund can reach them."
He turned sharply to Desiree. His wits, cleared by action, told him
that her silence meant that she, at all events, had not been
surprised. She had, therefore, known already the part played by De
Casimir and Charles, in Dantzig, before the war.
"And you," he said, "you have nothing to say for your husband."
"He may have been misled," she said mechanically, in the manner of
one making a prepared speech or meeting a foreseen emergency. It
had been foreseen by Louis d'Arragon. The speech had been,
unconsciously, prepared by him.
"You mean, by Colonel de Casimir," suggested Mathilde, who had
recovered her usual quiet. And Desiree did not deny her meaning.
Sebastian looked from one to the other. It was the irony of Fate
that had married one of his daughters to Charles Darragon, and
affianced the other to De Casimir. His own secret, so well kept,
had turned in his hand like a concealed weapon.
They were all startled by Barlasch, who spoke from the kitchen door,
where he had been standing unobserved or forgotten.
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