Luckily for her this harmless vengeance had not been
discovered, for doubtless she would have paid dearly for her Gallic
audacity.
She was small of stature and very thin. Not even the nurse's flowing
garb could conceal the angularity of her figure. One wondered how so
fragile a frame could have survived the crashings and shakings of war.
What secret of yielding and resisting was hers? The tension,
nevertheless, had left its mark upon her young face; had drawn the skin
over the aquiline profile, and compressed the sensitive mouth in a line
too rigid for her years. This severity of feature she aggravated by
pinning her _coiffe_ low over a forehead as uncompromising as a nun's.
Not a relenting suggestion of hair would she permit. Yet whatever of
tenderness or hope she strove thus to hood, nothing could suppress the
beauty of her luminous eyes; caressing eyes that belied her austere
manner. No sight of blood nor weariness, no insult had hardened them.
Even when their greenish depths went dark and wide with reminiscence, a
light lurked at the bottom--the reflection of something dancing. Yes,
everybody loved Mademoiselle Gaston.
For weeks we had seen it coming. She had told us of her engagement at
breakfast one Monday morning after a week-end visit to her married
sister in Paris. It had seemed a good business proposition. She
announced it as such, calmly, with a frankness that astonished my
American soul. We were pleased.
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