The Old Blood

ach the foolish people of a beautiful world h

ome other person in some other age seemed to have done those charcoals, which still lay stacked on the corner table in the sitting-room. Her thoughts went forth with the able-bodied villagers who had left their harvests to fight

ought when France was about to fight for her life. But Madame Ribot decided to the contrary.

s in a time like this!

. "All the trains full of soldiers, and there wil

on the Prussians. She, too, believed in a French victory. It was not as it had been in '70. The French were ready

. The objections to Henriette's go

stay here," Mada

cs," said Helen. "I'll run u

aid Madame Ribot pettishly. "Now when I need you

now that you thought of it in

ogether. I should

d! I didn't think o

rs. Helen had been hungry for affection all her life, plain girls being quite human and wanting what they do not receive. In answer she had a pressu

nd with a sense of reassurance. There was something s

robably the war will not trouble us," Madame Ribot con

ght of it in that

t." She was weary of having her daughter's arm around her neck and feeling that strange res

uliar sensitiveness cons

e went on painting. But Helen could not draw. She wandered over the fields, her mind ever on the war. She was with the Belgians

" said H

k he will,"

d he? It's

nderstood. Many young men had come to Mervaux for the same reason. Many had gone away trying to conceal their deject

she will not for a few years more. A woman may do that only once. And Helen had not fallen in

so irregular, he wrote, he would not wait for a reply, but would arrive on the morning of the day set, and should he find that the war interfered with their a

d position. There were Americans who were nice and who were not nice and Englishmen and Frenchmen who were nice and who were not nice. She would have preferred a nice villain to an ill-mannered saint. For she had decided when quite young that it was not worth while wasting one's time with anybody who was not nice. At the same time, she insisted that she was not a snob and the great appeal to her of the Fr

en they arrived. After his glimpse of armed Europe rushing to conflict, after seeing and feeling the straining effort of the nations with every human being drawn into

n his first holiday in Europe, he may well look forward to seeing her again with a certain personal curiosity. Sometimes the second impression is convincing of a temporary squint in the eye at the time of the first. He had remarked on the

t if it had even started it was arrested when Henriette picked a rosebud and fastened it in his buttonhole, an old form of illusioning or

ow, shan't we?" she asked, as they t

despite the war? Won't i

away immediately. Besides, didn't I hear you say that you could

was ready, even if the portrait

ry much want one of you to hang opposite the ancestor's. I promised it to them and I thought I'd make a copy of the ancestor to send

ords of acceptance a

on my side; it's an op

owered her long lashes and raised her hand to brush back a strand of hair which was really not much

profile one would

d settled that p

ou different fro

n advanta

el

ull face? The ancest

g directly at each other in the

e now?" sh

act

of further thoughtful observation, squinting her eyes ever so

o much more c

an talk as

he subject life!" he conc

inter, too,

and with a sweeping motion across her forehead. She had watched the scene between Henriette and Philip on the walk and to her it had the familiarity of an ha

Truckleford and her absurd action about the portrait and of having yielded to tears in her room, all as part of some strange influen

u at Mervaux," she sai

sion, seemed characterless. How could this girl belong to the same family as Henriette and the well-groomed mother? At the same time he

ed too far," said Henriette, solicito

Then spasmodically, as one who comes out of a fit of absent-mindedness, she raised her hand and pressed it over Henriette's against her wai

to Henriette when they entered th

permanent exhibition," s

ning to her comments, and when they had been

you who have been in the Salon. I have great luck in cousin

ow could he know anything about art? She liked his simple attitude. It was a

r dinner," she said, "though you

n door, reading. With the brilliant light of Henriette departed, smaller lights became visible. Helen also was his cousin. But he felt a peculiar awkwardness in speaking to her. He

our drawings

y," she respon

I l

she said. "They explain themselves," she added

one of th

hink it

s!" She sprang up and looked over his shoulder, s