“If only the Germans would wait also! There is too much brass in their band for my taste. Yesterday they played all day upon the Porte Saverne. You can hear the music now if you will listen—”
They waited a moment, and a low booming report seemed to shake the very ground beneath their feet. Thérèse Lavencourt laughed again, but Georgine, a plump blonde from Rouen, feigned alarm, and leaned heavily upon the young lancer’s arm.
“Oh, Monsieur,” she cried, “how silly of me! And I have no husband at Ulm!”
Thérèse Lavencourt took up the theme as they all began to walk slowly toward a stand where the band played a military march with all that fervour which marked the faith of Strasburg in the first days of her isolation.
“That is the worst of husbands,” she exclaimed, with a glance at a captain of hussars which was unmistakable; “first you want them to show themselves; then you want them to go away. When they are gone, you shed tears. How silly it all is! And, of course, one pretends to be sorry, and all that. As if there was nothing else in life but marriage!”
“Nevertheless, marriage is decidedly amusing,” exclaimed the captain of hussars. It was the very subject he desired to speak about.
Light wit and shallow talk drew the little group away from the music to the shelter of the shrubberies. Beatrix found herself suddenly alone with Gatelet. She was sure that he had contrived the rendezvous, and he took up the conversation at once.
“You hear that, Madame Lefort. But you do not agree with it, of course. If she had said that marriage was exciting—”