One afternoon, five or six days later, I was seated by the
white-enamelled iron bed in the small white room. Susan had had a long,
quiet, normal nap, and her brisk sparrow-eyed Norman nurse, in her
pretty costume of the French Red Cross, had come to me in the little
reception-room of the hospital, where I had been sitting for an hour
stupidly thumbing over tattered copies of ancient American magazines,
and had informed me--with rather an ambiguous twinkle of those sparrow
eyes--that her patient had asked to see me as soon as she had waked, was
evidently feeling stronger, and that it was to be hoped _M. le
Capitaine_ would be discreet and say nothing to excite or fatigue the
poor little one. "_Je me sauve, m'sieu_," she had added, mischievously
grave; "_on ne peut avoir l'oeil a tout, mais--je compte sur vous._"
So innocently delighted had she been by her pleasant suspicions, it was
impossible to let her feel how sharply her raillery had pained me. But I
could not reply in kind. I had merely bowed, put down the magazine in my
hand, and so left her--to inevitable reflections, I presume, upon the
afflicting reticence of these otherwise so agreeable allies _d'outre
mer_. Their education was evidently deplorable. One never knew when they
would miss step, inconveniently, and so disarrange the entire social
rhythm of a conversation.
"Ambo," said Susan, putting her hand in mine, "do you know at all how
terribly I've missed you?" She turned her head weakly on her pillow and
looked at me. "You're older, dear. You've changed. I like your face
better now than I ever did."