Because it was Christmas day, Noel as the French term it, the living room at the farmhouse was gay with evergreens. But better than this, a real fire burned in the fireplace.
Eugenia let her companion take off her long nursing cloak and she herself removed her cap.
Then she stood revealed a different Eugenia, because of Barbara's taste and determination.
Instead of her uniform or her usual shabby, ill-made dress, she wore an exquisite pale gray crepe de chine, which made a beauty of her slenderness. About her throat there were folds of white and in her belt a dull, rose-velvet rose. This costume had been purchased in Paris as the girls passed through and Eugenia wore it today in honor of Christmas.
Without a doubt Eugenia looked pale and ill, but her hair was twisted about her head like a dull brown coronet and the shadows about her eyes revealed their new depth and sweetness.
When she sat down again, drawing near the fire with a little shiver, Captain Castaigne came and knelt beside her.
No American could have done this without awkwardness and self-consciousness. Yet there was no hint of either in the young French officer's attitude. Seeing him, Eugenia forgot her past narrowness and the critical misunderstanding of a nature that cannot appreciate temperaments and circumstances unlike their own. She was reminded of the picture of a young French knight, the St. Louis of France, whom she had seen among the frescoes of the Pantheon in Paris.
Very gravely Captain Castaigne raised Eugenia's hand to his lips.
"I care for you more than I did when I told you of my love and you would not believe. I shall go on caring. How long must I serve before you return my affection?"