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Even after her marriage to Captain Castaigne, Eugenia had confessed to the younger girl how she dreaded her own inability to become a Frenchwoman. She still feared that she would never be equal to the things Captain Castaigne had a right to expect of her, once the war was over.
Eugenia had suddenly spoken her husband's name and Captain Castaigne had gotten up to go over to her. However, he stopped long enough to expostulate. "That was an extraordinary idea of yours, Miss Davis. Hume was only talking of his old nurse. His mother died when he was a baby and she brought him up. I have heard him speak of 'Mother Susan' myself.
Soon after the ceremony Captain Castaigne had gone to rejoin his regiment and three days after Eugenia had become a member of the staff of a French hospital near her husband's line of trenches. So it turned out that Barbara Meade was left at the Chateau d'Amélie, as Madame Castaigne's friend and companion.
I had long ago decided that I should never open that book, and nothing on earth could have persuaded me to buy it. Fearful lest curiosity might tempt me to open it, I had never even looked at it in book-stores. If I ever had had any curiosity to read it, the awful tragedy of young Castaigne, whom I knew, prevented me from exploring its wicked pages.
Le Duc went with them and Eugenia kept one hand on the dog's head. Now and then she smiled over something Captain Castaigne said to her, then again she looked at him with the anxious gravity that was a part of Eugenia's character. The war had made the young French officer older, love and marriage had apparently taken ten years from Eugenia's age.
"Just think, Hildred, to-morrow I shall be the happiest fellow that ever drew breath in this jolly world, for Constance will go with me." I offered him my hand in congratulation, and he seized and shook it like the good-natured fool he was or pretended to be. "I am going to get my squadron as a wedding present," he rattled on. "Captain and Mrs. Louis Castaigne, eh, Hildred?"
Now, even while Mildred was talking of Nona and Sonya, the drawing room door opened and Captain Castaigne and his mother came in. Monsieur Le Duc accompanied them, but promptly deserted his former master and mistress and padded over to Eugenia, placing his great silver head on her lap and gazing at her with adoration. Captain Castaigne and his mother followed to greet their guests.
Plainly a beautiful understanding existed between the husband and wife, in spite of the differences in their natures, which would survive to the end. For when Captain Castaigne suddenly lifted his wife's hand and kissed it, it was like Eugenia to blush and whisper a protest, at which the young officer only laughed.
Then she felt ashamed of herself. Eugenia's husband was every instant in danger of losing his life, while Dick had only returned to the United States, where he was now safe in his own home. Yet Eugenia's letter made no complaints. She mentioned having seen Captain Castaigne once in the past month, when he had received a leave of absence of twenty-four hours and had hurried to her.
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