While speaking the Count’s eyes had been fixed upon some photographs upon the table.  Examining the portrait of Madame Desnoyers, he guessed that she must be Dona Luisa.  He smiled before the bewitchingly mischievous face of Mademoiselle Chichi.  Very enchanting; he specially admired her militant, boyish expression; but he scrutinized the photograph of Julio with special interest.

“Splendid type of youth,” he murmured.  “An interesting head, and artistic, too.  He would create a great sensation in a fancy-dress ball.  What a Persian prince he would make! . . .  A white aigrette on his head, fastened with a great jewel, the breast bared, a black tunic with golden birds. . . .”

And he continued seeing in his mind’s eye the heir of the Desnoyers arrayed in all the gorgeous raiment of an Oriental monarch.  The proud father, because of the interest which his son was inspiring, began to feel a glimmer of sympathy with the man.  A pity that he should select so unerringly and appropriate the choicest things in the castle!

Near the head of the bed, Don Marcelo saw lying upon a book of devotions forgotten by his wife, a medallion containing another photograph.  It did not belong to his family, and the Count, following the direction of his eyes, wished to show it to him.  The hands of this son of Mars trembled. . . .  His disdainful haughtiness had suddenly disappeared.  An official of the Hussars of Death was smiling from the case; his sharp profile with a beak curved like a bird of prey, was surmounted by a cap adorned with skull and cross-bones.

“My best friend,” said the Count in tremulous tones.  “The being that I love most in all the world. . . .  And to think that at this moment he may be fighting, and they may kill him! . . .  To think that I, too, may die!”

Desnoyers believed that he must be getting a glimpse into a romance of the nobleman’s past.  That Hussar was undoubtedly his natural son.  His simplicity of mind could not conceive of anything else.  Only a father’s tenderness could so express itself . . . and he was almost touched by this tenderness.

Here the interview came to an end, the warrior turning his back as he left the room in order to hide his emotion.  A few minutes after was heard on the floor below the sound of a grand piano which the Commissary had not been able to carry off, owing to the general’s interposition.  His voice was soon heard above the chords that he was playing.  It was rather a lifeless baritone, but he managed to impart an impassioned tremolo to his romance.  The listening old man was now really affected; he did not understand the words, but the tears came into his eyes.  He thought of his family, of the sorrows and dangers about them and of the difficulties surrounding his return to them. . . .  As though under the spell of the melody, little by little, he descended the stairs.  What an artist’s soul that haughty scoffer had! . . .  At first sight, the Germans with their rough exterior and their discipline which made them commit the greatest atrocities, gave one a wrong impression.  One had to live intimately with them to appreciate their true worth.