His betrothed had
never doubted his recovery from the moment that they permitted her to
remain with him.
"No one that I love, ever dies," she asserted with a ring of her
father's self-confidence. "As if I would ever permit the Boches to leave
me without a husband!"
She had her little sugar soldier back again, but, oh, in what
a lamentable state! . . . Never had Don Marcelo realized the
de-personalizing horrors of war as when he saw entering his home this
convalescent whom he had known months before--elegant and slender, with
a delicate and somewhat feminine beauty. His face was now furrowed by
a network of scars that had transformed it into a purplish arabesque.
Within his body were hidden many such. His left hand had disappeared
with a part of the forearm, the empty sleeve hanging over the remainder.
The other hand was supported on a cane, a necessary aid in order to be
able to move a leg that would never recover its elasticity.
But Chichi was content. She surveyed her dear little soldier with more
enthusiasm than ever--a little deformed, perhaps, but very interesting.
With her mother, she accompanied the convalescent in his constitutionals
through the Bois de Boulogne. When, in crossing a street, automobilists
or coachmen failed to stop their vehicles in order to give the invalid
the right of way, her eyes shot lightning shafts, as she thundered,
"Shameless embusques!" .
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