“But——”
“I am tired and thirsty! I don’t think I can eat my supper without. Please, brother Felix!”
We made, after all, a merry meal of it, as the train, crashing past the sentry lights of the last suburban stations, sped shrieking into the black and unknown vasts beyond.
“It is like being put, with one’s billet,” said Fifine, “into one of those rolling balls you see in shops; and at Nîmes we shall stop, and the cashier will take us out.”
“Our ball will have a window in it before then,” I answered; “and we shall see things as we roll.”
She came and sat by me presently—for convenience’ sake, she said. It was easier so to make a common cause of our feasting. By and by, her speech began to drowse a little, and she caught herself back, more and more, from declining upon my shoulder. At last I said, resolutely: “This is good-night, m’amie. You will lie down here, now, and I will go and smoke in the next compartment. When daylight comes I will call to you.”
She let me make her comfortable, with the rücksack under her head, and our one rug over her for warmth. Then, like a rosy sleepy child, she smiled up at me.
“Good-night, dear brother.”
“Good-night, little sister.”
She made an indistinct movement with her lips, sighed, turned her head on one side, and closed her eyes.