"Her mother was a princess, and her
father a pure Frenchman, whose father's father was a chef de
bataillon. What better than that, eh? I say, what better could there
be than that?"
So, for the first time in her life, Melisse discovered the joys of
companionship with those of her own kind.
This new companionship, pleasant as it was, did not come between her
and Jan. If anything, they were more to each other than ever. The
terrible months through which they had passed had changed them both,
and had given them, according to their years, the fruits which are
often ripened in the black gloom of disaster rather than in the
sunshine of prosperity.
To Melisse they had opened up a new world of thought, a new vision of
the things that existed about her. The sternest teacher of all had
brought to her the knowledge that comes of grief, of terror, and of
death, and she had passed beyond her years, just as the cumulative
processes of generations made the Indian children pass beyond theirs.
She no longer looked upon Jan as a mere playmate, a being whose
diversion was to amuse and to love her. He had become a man. In her
eyes he was a hero, who had gone forth to fight the death of which she
still heard word and whisper all about her. Croisset's wife and Iowaka
told her that he had done the bravest thing that a man might do on
earth.
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