Yet the next moment, when Captain Castaigne touched her hand with infinite gentleness and respect, she drew it coldly away from him.
“I quite understand your gratitude, Captain Castaigne. But please appreciate the fact that it is unnecessary for you to go this far to express your obligation. I have only done for you what I would have done for any one in the world under the same circumstances.”
“I am entirely aware of that fact,” the young officer answered curtly.
Then he and Eugenia both maintained a dignified silence for the space of sixty seconds.
By this time the girl rose up.
“This is our good-by, perhaps. We may not see each other alone again. You must forgive me if I seem to be cold and unfeeling. Of course, I should have cared for any one just as I cared for you. But I should not have been so glad to have been given the opportunity had my patient been any other person.” Eugenia was trying her best to cast aside the cold and formal manner which had made her misunderstood all the days of her life. In her earnestness somehow she looked younger and humbler than usual. Indeed, she was a very fair and lovely woman standing there with her hands clasped before her. Her eyes were shining with the sincerity of her emotion, while her attitude expressed a strange mixture of dignity and appeal.
“When we first met each other, Captain Castaigne, I confess I had a wrong idea of you. Now I feel that I could have rendered France no greater service than to have saved your life. Since I came abroad to nurse in order to help the little I am able, perhaps my coming has not been in vain. Good-by.”
She was moving away, when the young officer reached out and took hold of her skirt.
“Please don’t go for another moment,” he pleaded. “Of course I understand that so noble a woman cannot love a man who has so little to offer as I have. Why, in spite of all our lands, my mother and I are little more than paupers! And if I am spared when this war is over, perhaps I shall always be lame.”
The girl was standing looking down at the young fellow whose head was slightly bowed, when instinctively she laid her firm, beautiful hand on his head with unconscious sympathy and tenderness. She had done the same thing so many times before during his illness. But Eugenia’s hand now trembled a little, for she was slowly beginning to appreciate what Captain Castaigne had been trying to say to her.