"
It was hideous when we went back to our seats by the ashes. The sun
had come out hot and nauseating, and the flies buzzed horribly. We
tried to crowd down food, but we could not swallow. We sat and chewed
on our despairing thoughts, and hate that was a compound of physical
faintness and sick uncertainty rose between us.
The Englishman took a miniature from his pocket and handed it to me.
"She gave it to me herself," he said. "With laughter and with kisses,
monsieur."
I tried to wave the picture away, but I had not strength to resist
looking. It was no profile that I saw. The brown eyes looked full in
mine; merry eyes, challenging, fun-crowded, innocent. There were no
sombre shadows there. There was spirit in plenty, but no sorrow.
White shoulders rose from clouds of pink gauze, and the hair was
powdered and pearl-wreathed and piled high in a coronet. It was not
the face of the woman that I knew. I said so, and returned the
portrait to the Englishman.
He could not resist baiting me. "You do not like it, monsieur?"
I shook my head. "It is nothing to me. It is the face of a laughing,
trusting, untouched girl. I have never seen her."
"You say that you married her.
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