What was there to do on a last day but look and note, and watch, and take one's leave? The buds against the twig-laced sky were larger than ever. To-morrow--the day after to-morrow ... it would be spring in England, too!
"_Tenez_, mademoiselle," said the market woman, "there is a little ounce of butter here that you may have!"
The morning passed and on drifted the day, and all was finished, all was done, and love gone, too. And with love gone the less divine but wider world lay open.
In the "Silver Lion" the patient girl behind the counter shook her head.
"If a letter comes where shall I send it on?"
"Thank you, but there will come no letter now. Good-bye."
It was the afternoon. Now such a tea, a happy, lonely tea--the last, the best, in Charleville! Crossing the road from the "Silver Lion" Fanny bought a round, flat, sandwich cake, and carried it to the house which was her own for one more night, placed it in state upon the biggest of the green and gold porcelain plates, and the anemones in a sugar-bowl beside it. She lit the fire, made tea, and knelt upon the floor to toast her bread. There was a half-conscious hurry in her actions.
("So long as nobody comes!" she whispered. "So long as I am left alone!") she feared the good-byes of the _concierge_, the threatened inventory of Philippe's mother, a call of state farewell from the billeting lieutenant.
When the toast was done and the tea made, some whim led her to change her tunic for a white jersey newly back from the wash, to put on the old dancing shoes of Metz--and not until her hair was carefully brushed to match this gaiety did she draw up the armchair with the broken leg, and prop it steadily beside the tea-table.
Who was that knocking on the door in the street?
One of the Section coming on a message? The _brigadier_ to tell her that she had some last duty still?
"Shall I go to the window?" (creeping nearer to it). Then, with a glance back at the tea-table, "No, let them knock!"
But how they knocked! Persistent, gentle--could one sit peacefully at tea so called and so besought! She went up to the blue curtains, and standing half-concealed, saw the _concierge_ brooding in the sunlight of her window-sill.
"Is _nobody_ there?" said a light voice in the hidden street below, and at that she peered cautiously over the edge of the stonework, and saw a pale young man in grey before the door.