"Yes, your pretty mid-western girl. She is with him now." Then Auntie lost Henry's eyes as tears brimmed into her own. "It has been twenty-six hours since we arrived at Neuilly. I shall return in an hour, and—"
"I wish," cried Henry, "I wish there was something we could do!"
Auntie caught our embarrassed desire to be of service yet not to assume. Her strong fine face lighted with something kind enough for a smile, as she answered: "Couldn't you go out and see him? I think no one else in Paris would be more welcome than you two!"
That puzzled us. She saw us looking our question at each other, and went on: "Life means more to him now than it ever has meant." She really smiled as she quoted: "'It means intensely and it means good!'" Auntie's tired eyes gathered us in again. "When you left Landrecourt last month he told me much about the voyage over here on the Espagne." The tired eyes left us to follow the crippled elevator boy who went pegging down the corridor as she continued: "about his days in Paris before he went back to his ambulance unit; about his meeting you that night near Douaumont,—at the first aid post and—and I know," she paused a second, pulled herself together and continued gently. "We must face things as they are. The boy's hours in this earth are short. He has other friends here, of course—old friends, but you—" again she stopped. "You will appreciate why when you see him."
So we gave up the poor travesty upon life that we should have seen behind the footlights for a glimpse into one of life's real dramas.
It was nearly midnight before we came to Neuilly and stood awkwardly beside the white cot in the little white room where the Gilded Youth was lying. How the gilding had fallen off! All white and broken he lay, a crushed wreck of a man, with the cluttering contrivances of science swathing him, binding him, encasing him, holding him miserably together while the tide of life ran out. But when he wakened he could smile. There was real gilding in that smile, the gilding of youth, but he only flashed his eyes upon us for a fleeting second in turning his smile to her—to the Eager Soul, to her who had brought some new incandescence into his life. Then we knew why his aunt had said that we should see him. He would have us who had witnessed the planting of the seed, know how it had flowered. His smile told us that also. He could lift no hand to us, and could speak but faintly. Yet his greeting held something princely in it—fine and sweet and brave. Then he did a curious thing. He began whistling very softly under his breath and between his teeth a queer little tune, that reminded one oddly of the theme of Tschaicovski's Symphony Pathetique—the first movement. As he whistled he turned from Henry and me and looked at the Eager Soul, who smiled back intelligently, and when she smiled he stopped. We could not understand their signals. But whatever it was so far as it pretended to a show of courage, we knew that it was a gorgeous bluff. In the fleeting glance that he gave us, he told us the truth; and we knew that he was pretending to the others that he did not know. We made some cheerful nothings in our talk, and would have gone but he held us. The Eager Soul looked at her watch, gave him some medicine, which we took to be a heart stimulant; for he revived under it, and said to me:
"Remember—that night at Douaumont?"
"Where you whistled the 'Meditation from Thais,' in the moonlight?"
"Yes," he murmured, "and we—watched—the trucks—come out of the mist—full of life—and go into the mist,—toward death."
"Wonderful—wasn't it!" sighed one of us.