“I will see about it,” answered the baroness. “If I have time, I will perhaps put in a word for one who is assuredly a great stupid—no name mentioned, you understand.”
So the Baroness de Mélide went to the gloomy old church of her choice, and sent up an incoherent prayer, such as were arising from all over France at this time. On returning by the Boulevard St. Germain, she met a friend, a woman whose husband had fallen at Weissembourg, who gave her more news from the front. The streets were crowded and yet idle. The men stood apart in groups, talking in a low voice: the women stood apart and watched them—for it is only in times of peace that the women manage France.
The baroness went home, nervous, ill at ease. She hardly noticed that the door was held open by a maid-servant. The men had all gone out for news—some to enroll themselves in the National Guard. She went up to the drawing-room, and there, seated at her writing-table with his back turned towards her, was Lory de Vasselot. All the brightness had gone from his uniform. He turned as she entered the room.
“Mon Dieu!” she said, “what is it?”
“What is what?” he answered gravely.
“Why, your face,” said the baroness. “Look—look at it!” She took him by the arm, and turned him towards a mirror, half hidden in hot-house flowers. “Look!” she cried again. “Mon Dieu! it is a tragedy, your face. What is it?”
Lory shrugged his shoulders.
“I was at Wörth,” he explained, “two days ago. I suppose Wörth will be written for life in the face of every Frenchman who was there. They were three to one. They are three to one wherever we turn.”
He sat down again at the writing-table, and the baroness stood behind him.
“And this is war,” she said, tapping slowly on the carpet with her foot.