"You might have reason to, Monsieur," retorted the girl demurely. "But you see it's Djack who is convalescing, not you."
She had become accustomed to the ceaseless banter of Burley's two comrades—a banter entirely American, and which at first she was unable to understand. But now all things American, including accent and odd, perverted humour, had become very dear to her. The clink-clank of the muleteer's big spurs always set her heart beating; the sight of an arriving convoy from the Channel port thrilled her, and to her the trample of mules, the shouts of foreign negroes, the drawling, broken French spoken by the white muleteers made heavenly real to her the dream which love had so suddenly invaded, and into which, as suddenly, strode Death, clutching at Love.
She had beaten him off—she had—or God had—routed Death, driven him from the dream.[pg 267] For it was a dream to her still, and she thought she could never be able to comprehend the magic reality of it, even when at last her man, "Djack," came back to prove the blessed miracle which held her in the magic of its thrall.
"Who's the guy with the wheelbarrow?" inquired Sticky Smith, rolling a cigarette.
"Karl, his name is," she answered; "—a Belgian refugee."
"He looks like a Hun to me," remarked Glenn, bluntly.
"He has his papers," said the girl.
Glenn shrugged.
"With his little pink eyes of a pig and his whitish hair and eyebrows—well, maybe they make 'em like that in Belgium."