“How could I help it, mon ami?”
She looked at me and smiled her sad little smile, and I saw in her eyes the weariness of the struggling against the call of her heart. A great hope came to me.
“I thought you would wait for America,” she said, and now her eyes no longer avoided mine but seemed never to leave my face.
“I’m going back to the Legion and, of course, the moment we go in, and that can’t be long, I shall be transferred.”
“You are well?”
“Entirely.”
What did it matter what we said? I think neither of us really knew. I saw only the light that shone in her eyes, and in the joy of being together neither the past nor the future nor the things about us existed. I took her arm and slowed my pace to the meditative step I knew so well, and together, heads bowed and still too happily oppressed by all we had to say to each other, we went silently towards the Park, each content with the knowledge of the other’s presence. It was the hour when the city, like another Cinderella, steps out of the drab and homespun of the day into the beaded fairy raiment of the twilight; when through the hard and hazy battlements something soft and gentle tempers the air; when the clamor of strident sounds lingers faintly in the drowsy distance and polyglot ugliness masks itself behind half-shadows and fleeting forms.
“Ah, Davy, I did want to see you again,” she said, without subterfuge, in the honesty of her nature, as only her nature could be honest. “I wanted to see you strong—yourself. I wanted to know that I had not brought you weakness and sorrow. Mon ami, tell me that it is so.”
We had wandered into the Park, through obscure winding paths, the argus-eyed city receding against the darkling sky, the lake at our feet, and only an occasional passer-by hurrying on his way. At the bridge we stopped, leaning over, shoulder to shoulder, each of us under the spell of the silence which visited us, and afraid of the test that words would bring.