Page:Life's little ironies (1894).pdf/153

They met continually now—mostly at dusk—during the brief interval between the going down of the sun and the minute at which the last trampet-call summoned him to his tent, Perhaps her manner had become less restrained latterly ; at any rate that of the Hussar was so; he had grown more tender every day, and at parting after these hurried interviews, she reached down her hand from the top of the wall that he might press it. One evening he held it so long that she exclaimed “ The wall is white, and somebody in the field may see your shape against it !”

He lingered so long that night that it was with the greatest difficulty that he could run across the intervening stretch of ground and enter the camp in time. On the next occasion of his awaiting her she did not appear in her usual place at the usual hour, His disappointment was unapeakably keen; he remained staring blankly at the wall, like a man ina trance. The trumpets and tattoo sounded, and still he did not go.

She had been delayed purely by an accident. When she arrived she was anxious because of the lateness of the hour, having beard the sounds denoting the closing of the camp as well as he. She implored him to leave immediately.

“No,” he said, gloomily. “I shall not go in yet— the moment you come—I have thought of your coming all day.”

“But you may be disgraced at being after time?”

“Tdon’t mind that, Ishould have disappeared from the world some time ago if it had not been for two persons—my beloved, here, and my mother in Saarbriick. I hate the army. I care more for a minute of your company than for all the promotion in the world.”

Thue he stayed and talked to her, and told her interesting details of his native place, and incidents of his