Her headstrong child's eyes were moist, and she was praying as fervently
as the mother . . . but it was surely not for her brother. Julio
had passed to second place in her remembrance. Another man was now
completely filling her thoughts.
The last of the Lacours was no longer a simple soldier, nor was he now
in Paris. Upon her return from Biarritz, Chichi had listened anxiously
to the reports from her little sugar soldier. Throbbing with eagerness,
she wanted to know all about the dangers which he had been experiencing;
and the young warrior "in the auxiliary service" told her of his
restlessness in the office during the interminable days in which the
troops were battling around Paris, hearing afar off the boom of the
artillery. His father had wished to take him with him to Bordeaux,
but the administrative confusion of the last hour had kept him in the
capital.
He had done something more. On the day of the great crisis, when the
acting governor had sent out all the available men in automobiles, he
had, unasked, seized a gun and occupied a motor with others from his
office. He had not seen anything more than smoke, burning houses, and
wounded men. Not a single German had passed before his eyes, excepting a
band of Uhlan prisoners, but for some hours he had been shooting on the
edge of the road . . . and nothing more.
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