Where was Juliette de Bayard now? Had the outbreak of war hastened or delayed her marriage with the happy master of swordsmanship? And—worshiping her father as Monica had said she did—how had she borne the parting from him?
She would be very calm.... P. C. Breagh pictured the little face drawn and pinched with misery; saw the sapphire eyes dimmed with tears unshed, imagined the slender throat convulsed with sobs that were kept resolutely back, heard the silver-flute voice saying:
"My father has honored me with his confidence as long as I can remember, sir!" and, "See you—I will be trusted absolutely, or I will not be trusted at all!"
Strange that his elfin queen—his carved ivory Princess—should bear the same name as the woman the Guardsman had gossiped of—the beautiful, evil creature with the eyes like Brazilian tourmalines. And, what particular color in Brazilian tourmalines might have been intended? Some were purple, others pink, and yet others reddish-brown. The woman who had dropped her parasol on the staircase at the Chancellor's had had eyes of tawny wine-color. With the remembrance, came back the perfume shaken from her rustling silks and laces, and the languid echo of her caressing voice.
Drowsiness came next, and then oblivion, in heavy slumber. And, as the unconscious form of P. C. Breagh lapsed this way and that, and his chin burrowed deeper into his bosom, the Sergeant who occupied the corner-seat facing the sleeper,—shading his eyes from the lamplight with a broad brown hand that wore a thick silver wedding ring upon the little finger, lowered the hand, and, leaning forward, stared in the young man's unconscious face, with small, suspicious, unwinking eyes. Now the eyes looked round so sharply, that every waking man in the compartment, save the blue-eyed patron of the Tingel-Tangel girl, found it necessary to assume the appearance of slumber, and the Sergeant's voice said hoarsely:
"Private von Valverden!"
"At your service, Herr Sergeant."
"Private von Valverden, is this one, then, an Englishman?"
"Undoubtedly, Herr Sergeant!"
"Gut!" said the Sergeant. "But what is his calling? Is he of the newspaper-offices that he sits and scribbles so?"