"If such grief could
be assuaged, pride in the gallant death of their gallant son might be a
panacea."
"As if you could make pride into a balm for broken hearts!" I said to
myself in scorn of this flowery eloquence. For a few minutes I forgot my
own plight to pity these people whom I had never seen. The Paris _Daily
Messenger_ slid off my lap on to the floor, and dropped with the back
page up. When I had glanced toward the bed, and seen that Brian still
slept, my eyes fell on the paper again. The top part of the last page is
always devoted to military snapshots, and a face smiled up at me from
it--a face I had seen once and never forgotten.
My heart gave a jump, Padre, because the one tiny, abbreviated
dream-romance of my life came from the original of that photograph.
Although the man I knew (if people can know each other in a day's
acquaintance) had been _en civile_, and this one was in aviator's
uniform, I was sure they were the same. And even before I'd snatched up
the paper to read what was printed under the picture, something--the
wonderful inner Something that's never wrong--told me I was looking at a
portrait of Jimmy Beckett.
CHAPTER II
I never mentioned my one-day romance to anybody. Only very silly,
sentimental girls would put such an episode into words, and flatter
themselves by calling it a romance. But now that you and Jimmy Beckett
have both given your lives for the great cause, and are in the same
mysterious Beyond while I'm still down here at Crucifix Corner, I can
tell you the story.
Pages:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25