e, did not, perhaps, even care for him. By what
moment in Petrograd, a moment flaming with their high purposes and the
purple shadows of a Russian "white night," had she been entranced into
some glorious vision of him? On the very day that followed, she had
known, I was convinced, her mistake. At the station she had known it,
and instead of the fine Sir Galahad "without reproach" of the previous
night she saw some figure that, had she been English born, would have
appeared to her as Alice's White Knight perchance, or at best the
warm-hearted Uncle Toby, or that most Christian of English
heroes--Parson Adams. I could imagine that life had been so impulsive,
so straightforward, so simple a thing to her that this sudden
implication in an affair complicated and even dishonest caused her
bitter disquiet. Looking back now I could trace again and again the
sudden flashes, through her happiness, of this distress.

He perhaps should have perceived it, but I could understand that he
could not believe that his treasure had at last after all these years
been given to him for so brief a moment. He could not, he would not,
believe it. Well, I knew that his eyes must very soon be opened to the
truth....

As I turned to see him sitting on the stretcher with his back to me,
his head hanging a little as though it were too heavy for his neck,
his back bent, his long arms fallen loose at his sides, I thought that
Alice's White Knight he, in solemn truth, presented.

He had a talent for doing things to his uniform. His cap, instead of
being raised in front, was flat, his jacket bulged out above his belt,
and the straps on his boot had broken from their holdings. He filled
the pockets of his trousers, in moments of absent-minded absorption,
with articles that he fancied that he would need--sometimes food,
black bread and sausage, sometimes a large pocket-knife, a folding
drinking glass, a ball of string, a notebook. These things protruded,
or gave his clothes a strange bulky look, fat in some places, thin in
others. As I saw him his shoulder-blades seemed to pierce his coat: I
could fancy with what agitation his hands were clenched.

We sat down, the three of us together, and again the battery leapt
upon us. Now the sun was hot above the trees and the effect of the
noise behind us was that we ourselves, every two or three minutes,
were caught up, flung to the ground, recovered, breathless, exhausted,
only to be hurled again!

How miser