ake any appeal to me. To my sympathy,
my admiration, my devotion, she offered only that bright surface of
her schooled manner and disciplined emotions. While her house
crumbled about her ears, while her world failed her, she deviated not
a hairbreadth from the line of social amenity."

"'But he is hardly likely to have company?' she asked again."

"As for me, I had visions of the kind of company that was due to him
--a formal sons-officer with a warrant of arrest, a file of stolid
soldiers, with rigid faces and curious eyes."

"But I answered her in her own manner."

"'There is certainly that drawback,' I said, and I thought--I hoped--
I saw gratitude in her answering look."

"Then Bertin returned, with the hat of a civilian and a cloak that
covered him to the ears. I saw their farewell--his look of appeal at
her, the smile of amusement which answered it. And next I was seated
beside him in the fiacre and she was framed in the door, looking
after us, slender and erect, pale and subtle, smiling still with a
manner as of weariness. It is thus that I remember her best."

"It was not till we were out of her sight that Bertin spoke. He lit a
cigarette and stared up at the great white stars."

"'She spoilt my luck from the first,' he said."

"I don't know why, but I laughed. At the moment it seemed to be a
very droll saying. And at the sound of my laughter he grinned in
sympathy. He was a wonderful man. When he was established in the
train, he held out his hand to me."

"'Adieu,' he said. 'You have been kind in your way. You didn't do it
for me, you know--so adieu!"

"I took his hand. It was a small thing to grant him, and I bad no
other answer. As the train moved away, I saw his face at the window
of the carriage, full of a kind of sly humor--gross, amiable, and
tragic! He waved me a good-bye."

The Colonel paused, staring at his trimly booted toe. Madame la
Comtesse looked at him thoughtfully.

"You saw him again? she asked.

"Yes," he answered. "But possibly the tale becomes too painful."

The Comtesse passed a hand over her eyes. "I must hear the rest," she
said. "You saw her, too, again?"

"Yes," said the Colonel.

"She was very hard," said the Comtesse thoughtfully. "Very hard
always. As a girl I remember----"

The Colonel was looking at her intently, as though some thought had
suddenly brought him enlightenment. Both he and the Comtesse seemed
quite to have forgotten Elsie, listening on her stool