And as if to remind the rejoicing of the price of their
happiness, there came limping through the crowd a procession of the
mutilees. They stumped along on wooden legs or on crutches; they
rode in wheeled chairs; they were led, who could not see. And
they smiled and cheered. None of them was whole, but every one
was a full man, for all that.
Audrey cried, shamelessly like Suzanne, but quietly. And, not for
the first time that day, she thought of Chris. She had never loved
him, but it was pitiful that he could not have lived. He had so
loved life. He would have so relished all this, the pageantry of
it, and the gayety, and the night's revelry that was to follow.
Poor Chris! He had thrown everything away, even life. The world
perhaps was better that these mutilees below had given what they
had. But Chris had gone like a pebble thrown into a lake. He had
made his tiny ripple and had vanished.
Then she remembered that she was not quite fair. Perhaps she had
never been fair to Chris.
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