CHAPTER II
INTERLUDE
March 15, 1920.
8:30 A.M.
Marise fitted little Mark's cap down over his ears and buttoned his blue reefer coat close to his throat.
"Now you big children," she said, with an anxious accent, to Paul and Elly standing with their school-books done up in straps, "be sure to keep an eye on Mark at recess-time. Don't let him run and get all hot and then sit down in the wind without his coat. Remember, it's his first day at school, and he's only six."
She kissed his round, smooth, rosy cheek once more, and let him go. Elly stooped and took her little brother's mittened hand in hers. She said nothing, but her look on the little boy's face was loving and maternal.
Paul assured his mother seriously, "Oh, I'll look out for Mark, all right."
Mark wriggled and said, "I can looken out for myself wivout Paul!"
Their mother looked for a moment deep into the eyes of her older son, so clear, so quiet, so unchanging and true. "You're a good boy, Paul, a real comfort," she told him.
To herself she thought, "Yes, all his life he'll look out for people and get no thanks for it."