XXXIII
It was not until the early winter that I saw Lucy. It was by accident. I sat just behind her at a musical comedy. She was with her husband. They looked very prosperous. They seemed to be comradely enough. Mostly I saw only the back of her head; once, her full profile; and then at last she turned half around in her seat, and saw me. I don't know what I did. I think I smiled, half rose to my feet, and lifted my hand as if to take off a hat—which of course I didn't have on. She nodded, and smiled brightly; but her eyes had that expression of praying that I have so often mentioned.
It was long since I had thought of her for more than a few minutes at a time. But now my heart began to beat furiously and all my sleeping love for her waked in my heart.
And now she was telling her husband who was sitting just behind them.
I went out after the act, intending to stay out. But Fulton followed so quickly that he caught me just as I was leaving the theater. "Hello, Archie," he said.
"Hello, John. How are you all?"
"Pretty well," he said; "and you?"
"Pretty well. Cartridges still looking up?"
"Yes. We're doubling the capacity of the plant for the second time since the war started. Have a drink?"
We walked to the nearest saloon. "We heard that you were going to enlist."