They come in presently.
They sit with us now, the dear things, sit hand in hand, and their young faces are almost too sacred to look at, so dazzling is the joy written in both his and hers.
They are bathed in smiles that keep breaking over their lips and eyes like sun-kissed breakers on a summer strand, and everything they say ends in a broken laugh.
And then we go into dinner, and they make me dine with them, and they order red wine, and make me have some, and I cease to be a stranger, I become an old friend, intermingling with that glorious happiness which seems to be mine as well as theirs because they are lovers and love all the world.
The old mother whispers to me softly when she got a chance: "He will be so pleased when he knows! There's a little one coming."
"Oh, wonderful little one!" I whisper back.
She understands and nods between tears and smiles again, while the two divine ones sit gazing at the paradise in each other's eyes.
And through it all, all the time, goes on the hungry growl of cannons, and just a few miles out continue, all the time, those wild and passionate struggles for life and death between the Allies and Germans, which soon—God in His mercy forbid—may fling this smiling, fair-headed boy out into the sad dark glory of death on the battle-field, leaving his little one fatherless.
Ah, but with what a heritage!