on est
trompe.

Charles Darragon had come to Dantzig a year earlier. He was a
lieutenant in an infantry regiment, and he was twenty-five. Many of his
contemporaries were colonels in these days of quick promotion, when men
lived at such a rate that few of them lived long. But Charles was too
easy-going to envy any man.

When he arrived he knew no one in Dantzig, had few friends in the army
of occupation. In six months he possessed acquaintances in every street,
and was on terms of easy familiarity with all his fellow-officers.

"If the army of occupation had more officers like young Darragon," a
town councillor had grimly said to Rapp, "the Dantzigers would soon be
resigned to your presence."

It seemed that Charles had the gift of popularity. He was open and
hearty, hail-fellow-well-met with the new-comers, who were numerous
enough at this time, quick to understand the quiet men, ready to make
merry with the gay. Regarding himself, he was quite open and frank.

"I am a poor devil of a lieutenant," he said, "that is all."

Reserve is fatal to popularity, yet friendship cannot exist without
it. Charles had, it seemed, nothing to hide, and was indifferent to the
secrets of others. It is such people who receive many confidences.

"But it must go no farther..." a hundred men had said to him.

"My friend, by to-morrow I shall have forgotten all about it," he
invariably replied, which men remembered afterwards and were glad.

A certain sort of friendship seemed to exist between Charles Darragon
and Colonel de Casimir--not without patronage on one side and a slightly
constraining sense of obligation on the other. It was de Casimir who
had introduced Charles to Mathilde Sebastian at a formal reception at
General Rapp's. Charles, of course, fell in love with Mathilde, and out
again after half-an-hour's conversation. There was something cold and
calculating about Mathilde which held him at arm's length with as much
efficacy as the strictest duenna. Indeed, there are some maidens who
require no better chaperon for their hearts than their own heads.

A few days after this introduction Charles met Mathilde and Desiree in
the Langgasse, and he fell in love with Desiree. He went about for
a whole week seeking opportunity to tell her without delay what had
happened to him. The opportunity presented itself before long; for
one morning he saw her walking quickly towards the Kuh-brucke with her
skates swinging from her wrist. I