“Oh! I beg of you, only one word!” she said, leaning far forward toward the remotest part of the lobby.
But the soldier remained inflexible. “No—no—it can’t be done—only if you have some message to give him, tell it to me, I will repeat it to him.”
Then a dialogue was entered into between this girl and her Pignou, with the guard as interpreter.
Much moved, without heeding those about her, she began:
“Tell him I have never loved any one but him; that I will never love another in all my life.”
The guard made a number of steps in the lobby, and redoubling his gravity as though to take from the proceeding all that was too kindly, he repeated: “She says she has never loved but you, and that she’ll never love another.”
I heard a grumbling, a confused stammering which must have been the response of Pignou, then the guard went back with measured step toward the bench.
“What did he say?” demanded the child all anxious, and as though waiting were too long: “Well, tell me what he said now?”
“He said he was very miserable!”—
Then, carried away by her emotion and the custom of the noisy and communicative streets, she cried out loud: