Before proceeding, I glanced at the pictured face. The Duke of Raincy-la-tour looked back at me with cool, clear eyes, smiling half aloofly, a little scornfully, as in the presence of danger the true Frenchman is apt to smile.
“I don’t think, Jean-Herve-Marie-Olivier,” I reflected, “that you ever talked to the Germans except with bombs. They probably got you, poor chap, and you’re lying buried somewhere while the gossips make a holiday of the fact that you don’t come home. Confound ‘current rumors’ anyhow, and yellow papers too!”
“I beg your pardon,” said a low contralto voice.
The girl in the fur coat was standing at my shoulder. I turned, lifting my cap, wondering what under heaven she could want. I was not much pleased to tell the truth; a goddess shouldn’t step from her pedestal to chat with strangers. Then suddenly I recognized a distinct oddness in her air.
“Would you lend me your paper,” she was asking, “for just a moment? I haven’t seen one since morning; the evening editions were not out when I came on board.”
Her manner was proud, spirited, gracious; she even smiled; but she was frightened. I could read it in her slight pallor, in the quickening of her breath.
My extra! What was there in the day’s news that could upset her? I was nonplussed, but of course I at once extended the sheet.
“Certainly!” I replied politely. “Pray keep it.” Lifting my cap a second time, I turned to go.
Her fingers touched my arm.
“Wait! Please wait!” she was urging. There was a half-imperious, half-appealing note in her hushed voice.