“Think! I should go back to London and see him and I should kiss his eyes and kiss them and kiss them until they got well again! If you don't go I shall. Oh, what am I talking about? You wicked little idiot! Go to him at once. Go!”
Torpenhow's neck was blistering, but he preserved a smile of infinite patience as Maisie's appeared bareheaded in the sunshine.
“I am coming,” said she, her eyes on the ground.
“You will be at Vitry Station, then, at seven this evening.” This was an order delivered by one who was used to being obeyed. Maisie said nothing, but she felt grateful that there was no chance of disputing with this big man who took everything for granted and managed a squealing horse with one hand. She returned to the red-haired girl, who was weeping bitterly, and between tears, kisses,—very few of those,—menthol, packing, and an interview with Kami, the sultry afternoon wore away.
Thought might come afterwards. Her present duty was to go to Dick,—Dick who owned the wondrous friend and sat in the dark playing with her unopened letters.
“But what will you do,” she said to her companion.
“I? Oh, I shall stay here and—finish your Melancolia,” she said, smiling pitifully. “Write to me afterwards.”
That night there ran a legend through Vitry-sur-Marne of a mad Englishman, doubtless suffering from sunstroke, who had drunk all the officers of the garrison under the table, had borrowed a horse from the lines, and had then and there eloped, after the English custom, with one of those more mad English girls who drew pictures down there under the care of that good Monsieur Kami.
“They are very droll,” said Suzanne to the conscript in the moonlight by the studio wall. “She walked always with those big eyes that saw nothing, and yet she kisses me on both cheeks as though she were my sister, and gives me—see—ten francs!”
The conscript levied a contribution on both gifts; for he prided himself on being a good soldier.