" He was speaking French and she followed him
easily now, her eyes beginning to fling out again their natural
sunny beams of interest. "I was born there twenty-six years ago
and haven't done much of anything since. You see before you,
Mademoiselle, a very undistinguished young man, who has signally
failed to accomplish the dream of his boyhood, which was to be a
great artist like Raphael or Angelo. Instead of being famous I am
but a poor Lieutenant in the forces of Virginia."
"You have a mother, father, brothers and sisters?" she
interrogated. She did not understand his allusion to the great
artists of whom she knew nothing. She had never before heard of
them. She leaned the poker against the chimney jamb and turned her
face toward him.
"Mother, father, and one sister," he said, "no brothers. We were a
happy little group. But my sister married and lives in Baltimore.
I am here. Father and mother are alone in the old house. Sometimes
I am terribly homesick." He was silent a moment, then added: "But
you are selfish, you make me do all the telling. Now I want you to
give me a little of your story, Mademoiselle, beginning as I did,
at the first."
"But I can't," she replied with childlike frankness, "for I don't
know where I was born, nor my parents' names, nor who I am. You
see how different it is with me.
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