“And your wounds?” said Mademoiselle Brun.
“A sabre-cut on the right shoulder, a bullet through the left leg—voilà tout. I was in Sedan, and we tried to get out. That is all I know, mademoiselle.”
Mademoiselle stood over him with her hands crossed at her waist, looking down at him with compressed lips.
“Not dangerous?” she inquired, glancing at his bandages, which indeed were numerous enough.
“I shall be in the saddle again in three weeks, they tell me. If the war only lasts—” He gave an odd, eager laugh. “If the war only lasts—”
Then he suddenly turned white and lost consciousness.
CHAPTER XX. WOUNDED.
That night mademoiselle wrote to Denise at Fréjus, breaking at last her long silence. That she gave the barest facts, may be safely concluded. Neither did she volunteer a thought or a conclusion. She was as discreet as she was secretive. There are some secrets which are infinitely safer in a woman's custody than in a man's. You may tell a man in confidence the amount of your income, and it will go no further; but in affairs of the heart, and not of the pocket, a woman is safer. Indeed, you may tell a woman your heart's secret, provided she keeps it where she keeps her own. And Mademoiselle Brun had only one thought night and day: the happiness of Denise. That, and a single memory—the secret, perhaps, which was such a standing joke at the school in the Rue du Cherche-Midi—made up the whole life of this obscure woman.