without tears or faintings. Her sallow
face, the feverish brilliancy of her eyes, and the rigidity that made
her move like an automaton were the only signs of her emotion. She was
living with her thoughts far away, with no knowledge of what was going
on around her.

When the patient arrived in Paris, his father and fiancee were
transfigured. They were going to see him, and that was enough to make
them imagine that he was already recuperated.

Chichi hastened to the hospital with her mother and the senator. Then
she went alone and insisted on remaining there, on living at the wounded
man's side, waging war on all regulations and clashing with Sisters
of Charity, trained nurses, and all who roused in her the hatred of
rivalry. Soon realizing that all her violence accomplished nothing, she
humiliated herself and became suddenly very submissive, trying with her
wiles, to win the women over one by one. Finally, she was permitted to
spend the greater part of the day with Rene.

When Desnoyers first saw the wounded artilleryman in bed, he had to make
a great effort to keep the tears back. . . . Ay, his son, too, might be
brought to this sad pass! . . . The man looked to him like an Egyptian
mummy, because of his complete envelopment in tight bandage wrappings.
The sharp hulls of the shell had fairly riddled him. There could only
be seen a pair of sweet eyes and a blond bit of moustache sticking up
between white bands. The poor fellow was trying to smile at Chichi, who
was hovering around him with a certain authority as though she were in
her own home.

Two months rolled by. Rene was better, almost well. His betrothed had
never doubted his recovery from the moment that they permitted her to
remain with him.

"No one that I love, ever dies," she asserted with a ring of her
father's self-confidence. "As if I would ever permit the Boches to leave
me without a husband!"

She had her little sugar soldier back again, but, oh, in what
a lamentable state! . . . Never had Don Marcelo realized the
de-personalizing horrors of war as when he saw entering his home this
convalescent whom he had known months before--elegant and slender, with
a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty. His face was now furrowed by
a network of scars that had transformed it into a purplish arabesque.
Within his body were hidden many such. His left hand had disappeared
with a part of the forearm, the empty sleeve hanging over the remainder.
The other hand w