“Why, I do believe I am more beautiful than ever,” she said as she slipped her warm body between the cool sheets.
Placing under the pillow the letter she had written to Pierre Lacroix, she was soon slumbering.
* * * * *
A fortnight later there came for her a letter with the Brussels postmark. She pushed it under her plate, for she and her husband were at breakfast, but as soon as the meal was over she sought her rose-garden, tore open the envelope and read what follows.
“Madame,—What is it you mean by writing to my husband of kisses? It is shameful, incredible! For three days he was strange to me. I knew not why. But now I do know, for this morning I found your letter in a secret pocket of his coat. I do not know you; I do not want to know you. If you write to him again, your letter will be returned to your husband. I have been married to Pierre a year: already I have a baby and another is on the way. Kisses, indeed!
“Jeanne Lacroix.”
Katya was both angry and amused.
It amused her to know that her letter had lain close to Pierre’s body for three days, but she was very angry that he had married. Why, he must have sought a bride within a few weeks of her leaving Brussels for Salonika. It was evident he had married a fool, a breeder of children, a jealous woman who could not write a clever letter. It was good that he should have married a fool. But it was an evil thing that he should so soon have forgotten her for whom he had vowed he would remain single for ever....
Her thoughts wandered from her to her husband, and she felt a sudden passionate desire. Having torn Mrs. Lacroix’s letter into tiny pieces, she made a hole in the flower-bed with a broken stick, thrust in the bits of paper, and covered up the hole with the heel of her shoe.
Then she called to her husband who, at her summons, came from the house to meet her.