Surgeon Delorme passed through the bar of brilliant light and disappeared, his place being taken by a gigantic figure with grizzled hair, and the stern face of the thoughtful peasant, the same Antoine Picard who had been left as a guardian over the little house beyond the Seine. John closed his eyes, that is nearly, and caught the glance that the big man gave to Julie. It was protecting and fatherly, and he knew that Antoine would answer for her at any time with his life. It was one remnant of feudalism to which he did not object. He opened his eyes wide and said:
"Well, my good Picard, perhaps you thought you were going to look at a dead American, but you are not. Behold me!"
He sat up and doubled up his arm to show his muscle and power. Picard smiled and offered to shake hands in the American fashion. He seemed genuinely glad that John had returned to the real world, and John ascribed it to Picard's knowledge that he was Lannes' friend.
Julie said some words to Picard, and with a little au revoir to John, went away. John watched her until she was out of sight. He realized again that young French girls were kept secluded from the world, immured almost. But the world had changed. Since a few men met around a table six or seven weeks before and sent a few dispatches a revolution had come. Old customs, old ideas and old barriers were going fast, and might be going faster. War, the leveler, was prodigiously at work.
These were tremendous things, but he had himself to think about too, and personality can often outweigh the universe. Julie was gone, taking a lot of the light with her, but Picard was still there, and while he was grizzled and stern he was a friend.
John sat up quite straight and Picard did not try to keep him from it.
"Picard," he said, "you see me, don't you?"
"I do, sir, with these two good eyes of mine, as good as those in the head of any young man, and fifty is behind me."
"That's because you're not intellectual, Picard, but we'll return to our lamb chops. I am here, I, a soldier of France, though an American—for which I am grateful—laid four days upon my back by a wound. And was that wound inflicted by a shell, shrapnel, bomb, lance, saber, bullet or any of the other noble weapons of warfare? No, sir, it was done by a horse, and not by a kick, either, he jostled me with his knee when he wasn't looking. Would you call that an honorable wound?"
"All wounds received in the service of one's country or adopted country are honorable, sir."