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.