For the first time of his own accord, he drew his chair a little nearer to hers. He took her hand. She gave him both unresistingly.
"Listen, dear Sonia," he said, "it is true that I am a changed man. I am older than when we met last, and there are the other things. You remember the Chateau d'Albert?"
"Of course!" she murmured. "And the young Duc d'Albert's wonderful house party. We all motored there from Paris. You and I were together! You have forgotten that, eh?"
"I lay in that orchard for two days," he went on grimly, "with a hole in my side and one leg pretty nearly done for. I saw things I can never forget, in those days, Sonia. D'Albert himself was killed. It was in that first mad rush. Of the Chateau there remains but four blackened walls."
"Pauvre enfant!" she murmured. "But you are well and strong again now, is it not so? You will not fight again, eh? You were never a soldier, dear friend."
"Just now," he confided, "I have other work to do. It is that other work which has brought me to America."
She drew him a little closer to her. Her eyes questioned him.
"There is, perhaps, now," she asked, "a woman in your life?"
"There is," he admitted.
She made a grimace.