Another stare was all the reply.
“In a little time, and with a little patience, I’d make him as gentle as a lamb.”
“I am afraid you’ll not have the opportunity,” replied he, significantly; “but the colonel, I see, is waiting for you, and you can discuss the matter together.”
The other dragoon had just then returned, and made me a sign to follow him. A few paces brought us to the door of a small pavilion, at which a sentry stood, and having motioned to me to pass in, my guide left me. An orderly sergeant at the same instant appeared, and beckoning to me to advance, he drew aside a curtain, and pushing me forward, let the heavy folds close behind me; and now I found myself in a richly-furnished chamber, at the farther end of which an officer was at supper with a young and handsome woman. The profusion of wax lights on the table—the glitter of plate, and glass, and porcelain—the richness of the lady’s dress, which seemed like the costume of a ball—were all objects distracting enough, but they could not turn me from the thought of my own condition; and I stood still and motionless, while the officer, a man of about fifty, with dark and stern features, deliberately scanned me from head to foot. Not a word did he speak, not a gesture did he make, but sat, with his black eyes actually piercing me. I would have given any thing for some outbreak of anger, some burst of passion, that would have put an end to this horrible suspense, but none came; and there he remained several minutes, as if contemplating something too new and strange for utterance. “This must have an end,” thought I—“here goes;” and so, with my hand in salute, I drew myself full up, and said,
“I carried your orders, sir, and received for answer that Major Roquelard had taken the north road advisedly, as that by Beaumont was cut up by the artillery trains; that he would cross over to the Metz Chaussée as soon as possible; that he thanked you for the kindness of your warning, and regretted that the rules of active service precluded his dispatching an escort of arrest along with me, for the manner in which I had ridden with the order.”
“Any thing more?” asked the colonel, in a voice that sounded thick and guttural with passion.
“Nothing more, sir.”
“No further remark or observation?”
“None, sir—at least from the major.”
“What then—from any other?”