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"Good morning, General!" came the sound of a fresh, gay voice behind, which sent a thrill through him. He turned and saw Zibeline, who had just stopped a few steps distant from him, sitting in her carriage, to which was harnessed a pretty pair of cobs, prancing and champing their bits. "Ah, it is you, Mademoiselle!" he said, carrying his hand to the visor of his kepi, fastened under his chin.
We talked a long time; I, somewhat embarrassed, covering with my képi the spot on my neck; she trying to persuade me to accept some money, which I refuse. She says to me at last: "I desire with all my heart to be useful to you. What can I do?"
But these black-clad women do know know that the cool green clump of trees over on the hill-side hides a roofless ruin with fire-blackened walls; that the church spire that for all their lives they had seen out there over the sky-line is no longer visible because it lies shell-smitten to a tumbled heap of brick and stone and mortar; that the glint of white wood and spot of scarlet yonder in the field is the rough wooden cross with a képi on top marking the grave of a soldier of France; that down in the hollow just out of sight are over a score of those cap-crowned crosses; that a broad belt of those graves runs unbroken across this sunlit face of France.
"At this the men raised a hearty laugh, and we felt quite light-hearted, while Pratique, who was walking by the side of the litter, waved his kepi and shouted: "'Vive la France! And I felt really affected. I do not know why, except that I thought it a pretty and gallant thing to say.
Everyone was in uniform; there was scarce a head that was not decorated with the kepi of the National Guard.
Then the old gentleman stoops, and all his medals hang out from his tunic like little dried-up breasts. He bends down, puffing and pouting, without removing his gold-trimmed KEPI, and lays a deaf ear on Carre's chest with an air of authority. Carre's leg has been sacrificed. The whole limb has gone, leaving a huge and dreadful wound level with the trunk.
Some bathers, earlier than ourselves, were already sauntering about the galleries in every variety of undress, from the simple caleçon to the gaudiest version of Turkish robe and Algerian kepi.
For it was the dead Karl; Karl, surely! Karl! his plump figure belted in a French officer's tunic; his flaxen hair clipped a little closer, but still its fleece showing under his kepi. Karl, his cheeks more cherubic than ever unchanged but for a tiny yellow toy mustache curling up over the corners of his full lips.
It was indeed Jean, who, when he saw in the distance the Cure and Paul de Lavardens, waved in the air his kepi adorned with two golden stripes. Jean was lieutenant in the regiment of artillery quartered at Souvigny.
But the chauffeur-commander of the armored car made it most difficult. At sight of Marie, much to her alarm, as though greeting a dear friend, he snatched his kepi from his head and sprang toward her. "The major," he cried, "told me you were here, that you are Madame d'Aurillac." His eyes spoke his admiration. In delight he beamed upon her. "I might have known it!" he murmured.
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