Then Desiree came down, and he helped her to find
in a shed in the yard one of those travelling-trunks
which he had recognized as being of French manufacture.
He took off his boots, and carried it upstairs for
her.
It was ten o’clock before Sebastian came in.
He nodded his thanks to Barlasch, and watched him
bolt the door. He made no inquiry as to Mathilde,
but extinguished the lamp, and went to his room.
He never mentioned her name again.
Early the next morning, the girls were astir.
But Barlasch was before them, and when Desiree came
down, she found the kitchen fire alight. Barlasch
was cleaning a knife, and nodded a silent good morning.
Desiree’s eyes were red, and Barlasch must have
noted this sign of grief, for he gave a contemptuous
laugh, and continued his occupation.
It was barely daylight when the Grafin’s heavy,
old-fashioned carriage drew up in front of the house.
Mathilde came down, thickly veiled and in her travelling
furs. She did not seem to see Barlasch, and
omitted to thank him for carrying her travelling-trunk
to the carriage.
He stood on the terrace beside Desiree until the carriage
had turned the corner into the Pfaffengasse.
“Bah!” he said, “let her go.
There is no stopping them, when they are like that.
It is the curse—of the Garden of Eden.”
In counsel it is good to see dangers; and in
execution not to see them unless they be very great.
Mathilde had told Desiree that Colonel de Casimir
made no mention of Charles in his letter to her.
Barlasch was able to supply but little further information
on the matter.
“It was given to me by the Captain Louis d’Arragon
at Thorn,” he said. “He handled
it as if it were not too clean. And he had nothing
to say about it. You know his way, for the rest.
He says little; but he knows the look of things.
It seemed that he had promised to deliver the letter—for
some reason, who knows what? and he kept his promise.
The man was not dying by any chance—that
De Casimir?”
And his little sharp eyes, reddened by the smoke of
camp-fires, inflamed by the glare of sun on snow,
searched her face. He was thinking of the treasure.
“Oh no!”
“Was he ill at all?”
“He was in bed,” answered Desiree, doubtfully.
Barlasch scratched his head without ceremony, and
fell into a long train of thought.
“Do you know what I think?” he said at
length. “I think that De Casimir was not
ill at all—any more than I am; I, Barlasch.
Not so ill, perhaps, as I am, for I have an indigestion.
It is always there at the summit of the stomach.
It is horse without salt.”
He paused and rubbed his chest tenderly.
“Never eat horse without salt,” he put
in parenthetically.
“I hope never to eat it at all,” answered
Desiree. “What about Colonel de Casimir?”
