as supported on a cane, a necessary aid in order to be
able to move a leg that would never recover its elasticity.

But Chichi was content. She surveyed her dear little soldier with more
enthusiasm than ever--a little deformed, perhaps, but very interesting.
With her mother, she accompanied the convalescent in his constitutionals
through the Bois de Boulogne. When, in crossing a street, automobilists
or coachmen failed to stop their vehicles in order to give the invalid
the right of way, her eyes shot lightning shafts, as she thundered,
"Shameless embusques!" . . . She was now feeling the same fiery
resentment as those women of former days who used to insult her Rene
when he was well and happy. She trembled with satisfaction and pride
when returning the greetings of her friends. Her eloquent eyes seemed
to be saying, "Yes, he is my betrothed . . . a hero!" She was constantly
arranging the war cross on his blouse of "horizon blue," taking pains
to place it as conspicuously as possible. She also spent much time in
prolonging the life of his shabby uniform--always the same one, the
old one which he was wearing when wounded. A new one would give him the
officery look of the soldiers who never left Paris.

As he grew stronger, Rene vainly tried to emancipate himself from her
dominant supervision. It was simply useless to try to walk with more
celerity or freedom.

"Lean on me!"

And he had to take his fiancee's arm. All her plans for the future were
based on the devotion with which she was going to protect her husband,
on the solicitude that she was going to dedicate to his crippled
condition.

"My poor, dear invalid," she would murmur lovingly. "So ugly and so
helpless those blackguards have left you! . . . But luckily you have
me, and I adore you! . . . It makes no difference to me that one of your
hands is gone. I will care for you; you shall be my little son. You will
just see, after we are married, how elegant and stylish I am going to
keep you. But don't you dare to look at any of the other women! The very
first moment that you do, my precious little invalid, I'll leave you
alone in your helplessness!"

Desnoyers and the senator were also concerned about their future, but in
a very definite way. They must be married as soon as possible. What was
the use of waiting? . . . The war was no longer an obstacle. They would
be married as quietly as possible. This was no time for wedding pomp.

So Rene Lacour remained p