She looked at him.
“Your leave is up already? You are going away again soon?”
“I am not going back to the regiment.”
In her surprise she waited for his explanation.
“I am going to resign.”
“You, Jean! Oh, that is a mistake. You are not thirty yet, you have the Legion of Honor and you are giving up your career! What would Marcel have thought?”
“Marcel would have agreed with me—because I shall serve France in another way, which will not be less useful. From being a soldier I shall become a colonist. I have written to your brother Étienne, who finds his work at Tonkin too much for him. I am going to join him.”
“Oh,” she said. “How glad they will be out there! They know what good friends you and Marcel were. You will tell them about him as you have told us. You will see my nephew and my niece. You will know them before I do.”
The shadows were falling over the plain and began to climb the mountain slopes. Over Lake Bourget far away, hung a violet haze, mingling itself by degrees in the pink and gold of the sky. Evening was enveloping still nature like a blessing.
Jean rose and stood before the girl.