"It is true," she whispered, as she entered the room, "that I am half out of reach of pain--" and long, in plans for the future, she hung over the embers.
The gradual sinking of the light before her reminded her of the present. "The last night that the fire burns for me!" She heaped on all her logs.
"Little pannikin of chocolate, little companion!" Hunger, too, awoke, and she dropped two sticks of chocolate into the water. "The fire dies down to-night. To-morrow I shall be gone." A petal from the apple blossom on the mantelpiece fell against her hand.
"To-morrow I shall be gone. The apple blossom is spread to large wax flowers, and the flowers will fall and never breed apples. They will sweep this room, and Philippe's mother will come and sit in it and make it sad. So many things happen in the evening. So many unripe thoughts ripen before the fire. Turk, Bulgar, German--Me. Never to return. When she comes into this room the apple flowers will stare at her across the desert of _my_ absence, and wonder who _she_ is! I wonder if I can teach her anything. Will she keep the grid on the wood fire? And the blue birds flying on the bed? It is like going out of life--tenderly leaving one's little arrangements to the next comer--"
And drawing her chair up to the table, she lit the lamp, and sat down to write her letter.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Happy Foreigner, by Enid Bagnold