“I regret I intruded,” she said sincerely. The Marquis gave her a look of astonishment; her open glance met his; he blushed, opened his lips to speak, but did not. “I also can admire St. Wenceslas,” she added. She pulled off her clumsy cap, and long trails of smoke-black hair fell untidily over her resplendent coat. She went on one knee before the altar, snatched off her gloves, and clasped above her head her small hands, which were white, stiff, and creased from the pressure of the leather. “I have been discourteous,” said the Marquis, and the ready colour heightened in his delicate cheek. The Countess Carola took no heed; she was murmuring prayers in her own language, which to his ears sounded uncouth, but not unpleasing. He moved respectfully away. An acolyte was passing before the high altar; the door was swinging to and fro as several people--French, Bavarian, and Bohemian--entered the church for vespers. M. de Vauvenargues looked back at the figure of the Polish lady. She appeared to be praying with a real and rather sad fervour; her strange, rich, and flamboyant dress, her disarranged hair, her attitude of supplication made her a fitting figure for the sparkling chapel; she looked more like a youth than a woman; she might have been St. Wenceslas himself just before the knife of Boleslav was plunged into his back. The Marquis passed out into the bitter sombre night, which was filled with the ringing of the bells of many churches. He made his way along the dark terraces until he stood looking over the lights of Prague below, the still more distant fires of the Austrians, the whole windy depth of the night spread before him. Immediately beneath him he could hear the rustling of the great bare trees in the Stags Ditch. Presently the organ from the cathedral silenced these sounds and rolled out gloomily and commandingly across the darkness. M. de Vauvenargues, of ancient family and small fortune, had been nine years in the army, had served in the Italian campaign of ’32, and had as yet met with no distinction and could foresee no hope of advancement; but it never occurred to him to doubt that the great career that filled his dreams would be one day his. He never spoke of his ambitions, yet he foresaw himself a Maréchal de France, carrying the baton with the silver lilies, riding across Europe at the head of a huge army. Sometimes, as now, this vision was so intensely vivid that a little shiver ran through his blood and his breath choked his throat and a desire for action possessed him, so passionate that it shook his heart. He found himself chafing--and not for the first time--at this long idleness in Prague. He felt impatient with M. de Broglie for allowing himself to be forced into the city, and impatient even with M. de Belleisle for not moving before the winter set in, for now they could not move for three, perhaps four, months.