“Did Mainutung love you for your curls?”
“Perhaps so. He loved me in spite of himself. Jean, darling, he had never intended to marry.”
“There, Oshki, you mustn’t talk.”
“But I’m fifty years old, and I think you ought to know. I’ve always wanted to tell you how we met. He seemed no older than I, his hearing so perfect, his eyes so keen. It was like a flash of lightning through us both—I can feel it yet in my own heart—disarming—”
“There, sweetness, you’re panting again.”
“Disarming—”
Jean ran for the needle, but it was too late. The gasps were terrible for a minute, the eyes were glazed. Then all was silent as the new life beginning beneath the snow.
“Agricola! Agricola!”
The dog came bounding in from the kitchen.
“Find him, boy!”