The girls' arms pressed each other.
German officers passed and repassed, rigid, supercilious, staring at the young girls with that half-sneering, half-impudent, near-sighted gaze peculiar to the breed. Their insolent eyes, however, dropped before the clear, mild glance of the old vicomte.
His face was furrowed by care and grief, but he held his white head high and stepped with an elasticity that he had not known in years. Defeat, disaster, sorrow, could not weaken him; he was of the old stock, the real beau-sabreur, a relic of the old régime, that grew young in the face of defeat, that died of a broken heart at the breath of dishonour. There had been no dishonour, as he understood it—there had been defeat, bitter defeat. That was part of his trade, to face defeat nobly, courteously, chivalrously; to bow with a smile on his lips to the more skilful adversary who had disarmed him.
Bitterness he knew, when the stiff Prussian officers clanked past along the sidewalk of this French city; despair he never dreamed of. As for dishonour—that is the cry of the pack, the refuge of the snarling mob yelping at the bombastic vociferations of some mean-souled demagogue; and in Paris there were many, and the pack howled in the Republic at the crack of the lash.
"Lady Hesketh is here, too," said Lorraine. "She appears to be a little reconciled to her loss. Dorothy, it breaks my heart to see Rickerl. He lies in his room all day, silent, ghastly white. He does not believe that Alixe—did what she did—and died there at Morteyn. Oh, I am glad you are here. Jack says you must tell Rickerl nothing about Sir Thorald; nobody is to know that—now all is ended."
"Yes," said Dorothy.
When they came to the house, Archibald Grahame and Lady Hesketh met them at the door. Molly Hesketh had wept a great deal at first. She wept still, but more moderately.
"My angel child!" she said, taking Dorothy to her bosom. Grahame took off his hat.
The old people hurried to Jack's room above; Dorothy, guided by Lorraine, hastened to Rickerl; Archibald Grahame looked genially at Molly and said:
"Now don't, Lady Hesketh—I beg you won't. Try to be cheerful. We must find something to divert you."