"Let us go and pick some apple blossoms. They last such a little while, and they are so pretty on the table. So you were in Napoleon's tomb that day? I have cried over the king of Rome's toys. Did Mr. Breitmann receive those scars in battle?"
"Oh, no. It was a phase of his student life in Munich. But he has been under fire. He has had some hard luck." He wanted to add: "Poor devil!"
She did not reply, but walked down the terrace steps to the path leading to the orchard. The sturdy, warty old trees leaned toward the west, the single evidence of the years of punishment received at the hands of the winter sea tempests. It was a real orchard, composed of several hundred trees, well kept, as evenly matched as might be, out of weedless ground. From some hidden bough, a robin voiced his happiness, and yellowbirds flew hither and thither, and there was billing and cooing and nesting. Along the low stone wall a wee chipmunk scampered.
"What place do you like best in this beautiful old world?" she asked, drawing down a snowy bough. Some of the blossoms fell and lay entrapped in her hair.
"This," he answered frankly. She met his gaze quickly, and with suspicion. His face was smiling, but not so his eyes. "Wherever I am, if content, I like that place best. And I am content here."
"You fought with Greece?"
"Yes."
"How that country always rouses our sympathies! Isn't there a little too much poetry and not enough truth about it?"
"There is. I fought with the Greeks because I disliked them less than the Turks."
"And Mr. Breitmann?"