“I loved her!” he muttered.
There was a stir, a door opened and shut, voices and steps sounded in the room on his left. He leaned forward a little and looked through the uncurtained window.
It was a bare and dingy room containing only a table, some hard chairs, and an old “Flügel” piano with a long inlaid case.
They sat together at the table. Ruth’s back was toward him; she was speaking. Yvonne was in the full light. Her eyes were cast down, and she was nervously plaiting the edge of her little black-bordered handkerchief. All at once she raised her eyes and looked straight at the window. How blue her eyes were!
Rex dropped his face in his hands.
“Oh God! I love her!” he groaned.
“Gute Nacht, gnädige Herrn!”
Sepp and Federl stood in their door with a light. Two figures were coming down from the Jaeger’s cottage. Gethryn recognized the colonel and Monsieur Bordier.
At the risk of scrutiny from those cool, elderly, masculine eyes, Rex’s manhood pulled itself together. He went back to meet them, and presently they all joined the ladies in the apology for a parlor, where coffee was being served.
Coming in after the older men, Rex found no place left in the little, crowded room, excepting one at the table close beside Yvonne. Ruth was on the other side. He went and took the place, self-possessed and smiling.