That is what I have seen; you will
not make me see it again?"
Her face was very earnest, very eloquent, very dark, and tender with
thought; there was a vein of grave, even of intense feeling, that ran
through the significant words to which tone and accent lent far more
meaning than lay in their mere phrases; the little bohemian lost her
insolence when she pleaded for her "children," her comrades; and the
mischievous pet of the camp never treated lightly what touched the
France that she loved--the France that, alone of all things in her
careless life, she held in honor and reverence.
"You will not make me see it again?" she said, once more leaning out,
with her eyes, that were like a brown brook sparkling deep, yet bright
in the sun, fixed on him. "They would rise at your bidding, and they
would be mowed down like corn. You will not?"
"Never! I give you my word."
The promise was from his heart. He would have endured any indignity,
any outrage, rather than have drawn into ruin, through him, the fiery,
fearless, untutored lives of the men who marched, and slept, and rode,
and fought, and lay in the light of the picket-fires, and swept down
through the hot sandstorms on to the desert foe by his side. Cigarette
stretched out her hand to him--that tiny brown hand, which, small though
it was, had looked so burned and so hard beside the delicate fairy ivory
carvings of his workmanship--stretched it out with a frank, winning,
childlike, soldierlike grace.
Pages:
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424