"Edward and I were just engaged before the outbreak of the war," she proceeded. "How handsome he was in his Hussars' uniform! How frightened I was and hew proud of his fine bravado when I heard him and a number of fellow officers drinking here in this room to quick death and speedy promotion! Do they still have that toast, Colonel?"
"Yes, in some regiments," Lanstron answered. He would not say that what was good form in the days of the _beau sabreur_ was considered a little theatrical in the days of the automatic gun-recoil.
"And when he came--oh, when you came home," breathed Mrs. Galland to the portrait, "with the scar on your cheek, how tanned and strong your hands were and how white mine as you held them so fast! And then"--she smiled in peaceful content--"then I did faint. I am not ashamed of it--I did!"
"Without any danger of falling far!" said Lanstron happily.
"You prattling children!" gasped Mrs. Galland, her cheeks flushing. "Do you think that I fainted purposely? I would have been ashamed to my dying day if I had feigned it!"
"And you did not faint in the presence of the dead and dying!" said Marta thoughtfully, wonderingly, leaning nearer to her mother, her eyes athirst and drinking.
"But I believe it is only a wispy-waspy sort of girl that faints at all these days. They're all so businesslike," said Mrs. Galland--"so businesslike that they are ceasing to marry."
How many girls she had known to wait a little too long! If anything could awaken Marta to action it ought to be war, which was a great match-maker forty years ago. The thought of a lover in danger had precipitated wavering hearts into engagements. Marta's mood was such that she received the hint openly and playfully to-day.
"Oh, I don't despair!" she exclaimed, straightening her shoulders and drawing in her chin with a mock display of bravery. "I believe it was in an English novel that I read that any woman without a hump can get any man she sets out for. It is a matter of determination and concentration and a wise choice of vulnerable objects."
"Marta, Marta!" gasped Mrs. Galland. In her tone was a volume of lamentation.
"Now that I'm twenty-seven mother is ready to take any risk on my behalf, if it is masculine. By the time I'm thirty she will be ready to give me to a peddler with a harelip!" she said mischievously.