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. She had even made the cake which was
now cut with some ceremony by her father.

"I tremble," she exclaimed aloud, "to think what it may be like in the
middle."

And Mathilde was the only person there who did not smile at the
unconscious admission. The cake was still under discussion, and the
Grafin had just admitted that it was almost as good as that other cake
which had been consumed in the days of Frederick the Great, when the
servant called Desiree from the room.

"It is a soldier," she said in a whisper at the head of the stairs. "He
has a paper in his hand. I know what that means. He is quartered on us."

Desiree hurried downstairs. In the entrance-hall, a broad-built little
man stood awaiting her. He was stout and red, with hair all ragged at
the temples, almost white. His eyes were lost behind shaggy eyebrows.
His face was made broader by little whiskers stopping short at the level
of his ear. He had a snuff-blown complexion, and in the wrinkles of his
face the dust of a dozen campaigns seemed to have accumulated.

"Barlasch," he said curtly, holding out a long strip of blue paper. "Of
the Guard. Once a sergeant. Italy, Egypt, the Danube."

He frowned at Desiree while she read the paper in the dim light that
filtered through the twisted bars of the fanlight above the door.

Then he turned to the servant who stood, comely and breathless, looking
him up and down.

"Papa Barlasch," he added for her edification, and he drew down his left
eyebrow with a jerk, so that it almost touched his cheek. His right
eye, grey and piercing, returned her astonished gaze with a fierce
steadfastness.

"Does this mean that you are quartered upon us?" asked Desiree without
seeking to hide her disgust. She spoke in her own tongu