ur, bearing the number "7" on their shoulder-straps,
dragoons of the Guard in blue and white, dragoons of the 2d
Regiment in black and blue. There were hussars too, dandies of
the 19th in their tasselled boots and crimson busby-crowns; Black
Hussars, bearing, even on their soft fatigue-caps, the emblems of
death, the skull and crossed thigh-bones. An Uhlan or two of the
2d Guard Regiment, trimmed with white and piped with scarlet,
dawdled around the salon, staring at gilded clock and candelabra,
or touching the grand-piano with hesitating but itching fingers.
Here and there officers of the general staff stood in consultation,
great, stiff, strapping men, faultlessly clothed in scarlet and
black, holding their spiked helmets carefully under their arms.
The pale blue of a Bavarian dotted the assembly at rare intervals,
some officer from Von Werder's army, attentive, shy, saying little
even when questioned. The huge Saxon officers, beaming with
good-nature, mixed amiably with the sour-visaged Brunswick men
and the stiff-necked Prussians.

In the long dining-room dinner was nearly ended. Facing each
other sat the old Vicomte and Madame de Morteyn, he pale,
dignified, exquisitely courteous, she equally pale but more
gentle in her sweet dignity. On the right sat the Red Prince,
stiff as steel, jerky in every movement, stern, forbidding,
unbending as much as his black Prussian blood would let him; on
the left sat a thin old man, bald as an ivory ball, pallid,
hairless of face, a frame of iron in a sombre, wrinkled tunic,
without a single decoration. His short hawk's nose, keen and fine
as a falcon's beak, quivered with every breath; his thin lips
rested one upon the other in stern, delicate curves. It was
Moltke, the master expert, come from Berlin to watch the wheels
turning in that vast complicated network of machinery which he
controlled with one fragile finger pressing the button.

There, too, was Von Zastrow, destined to make his error at
Gravelotte, there was Steinmetz, and the handsome Saxon prince,
and great, flabby August of Wuertemberg, talking with Alvensleben,
dainty, pious, aristocratic. Behind, in the shadow, stood
Manstein and Goben, a grim, gray pair, with menacing eyes.
Perhaps they were thinking of the Red Prince's parting words at
the Spicheren: "Your duty is to march forward, always forward,
find the enemy, prevent his escape, and fight him wherever you
find him." To which the fastidious and devout Alve