n a muffled voice, without looking round.

"No," answered Desiree, who had noticed nothing. How much more clearly
we should understand what is going on around us if we had no secrets of
our own to defend!

In obedience to Sebastian's gesture, D'Arragon took a chair, and even
as he did so Mathilde came to the table, calm and mistress of herself
again, to pour out the coffee, and do the honours of the simple meal.
D'Arragon, besides having acquired the seamen's habit of adapting
himself unconsciously and unobtrusively to his surroundings, was of a
direct mind, lacking self-consciousness, and simplified by the pressure
of a strong and steady purpose. For men's minds are like the atmosphere,
which is always cleared by a steady breeze, while a changing wind
generates vapours, mist, uncertainty.

"And what news do you bring from the sea?" asked Sebastian. "Is your sky
there as overcast as ours in Dantzig?"

"No, Monsieur, our sky is clearing," answered D'Arragon, eating with a
hearty appetite the fresh bread and butter set before him. "Since I
saw you, the treaties have been signed, as you doubtless know, between
Sweden and Russia and England."

Nodding his head with silent emphasis, Sebastian gave it to be
understood that he knew that and more.

"It makes a great difference to us at sea in the Baltic," said
D'Arragon. "We are no longer harassed night and day, like a dog,
hounded from end to end of a hostile street, not daring to look into any
doorway. The Russian ports and Swedish ports are open to us now."

"One is glad to hear that your life is one of less hardship," said
Sebastian gravely. "I.... who have tasted it."

Desiree glanced at his lean, hard face. She rose, went out of the room,
and returned in a few minutes carrying a new loaf which she set on the
table before him with a short laugh, and something glistening in her
eyes that was not mirth.

But neither Desiree nor Mathilde joined in the conversation. They were
glad for their father to have a companion so sympathetic as to produce
a marked difference in his manner. For Sebastian was more at ease with
Louis d'Arragon than he was with Charles, though the latter had the tie
of a common fatherland, and spoke the same French that Sebastian spoke.
D'Arragon's French had the roundness always imparted to that language by
an English voice. It was perfect enough, but of an educated perfection.

The talk was of such matters as concerned men more than women; of a