Free Cloudless May by Storm Jameson Page A

he knew that. Closing his eyes, he said rapidly,
    â€œIf you would only persuade the Prefect to send me away. It’s all nonsense about my eyesight. I saw a tank officer in glasses yesterday. After all, you sit in the tank, you drive it over everything, it’s not a question of avoiding things. In a tank I couldn’t conceivably go wrong. ...”
    He heard her laugh. When he looked at her, she patted his cheek with a cool hand.
    â€œGoodness, Lucien, you’re burning,” She laid her hand on his forehead. “No, you’re all right, it’s only your cheeks.”
    The young man felt himself turning giddy. He stood still,enduring his uncomfortable happiness, beating his mind for something to say. She would think him a bore.
    â€œYou agree that I ought to be fighting?” he said stiffly.
    â€œNot for a minute.”
    â€œAll my friends are in the army. I don’t like to sit here in luxury when they . . . why must you laugh?”
    â€œYour idea of luxury, my poor child. Shut up here to wear your suit out. They could at least give you a leather chair. Shall I ask for one for you? I’m very good at asking.”
    â€œYou ought not to need to ask,” Lucien said quietly, “you should be given . . . everything . . . you’re too good.”
    â€œThat’s charming.”
    Lucien was seized by a rash self-confidence. “I should like to get into the army,” he said, frowning at her, “because of the others. For everything else, I would rather stay where I can see you.”
    â€œNow you’re really talking nonsense,” Mme de Freppel said lightly. “I came to ask you for something, a little notepaper—no, not the plain. I want something impressive. Give me some sheets of your official notepaper.”
    Lucien handed over a packet. He felt extremely uncomfortable, but dared not refuse. Besides, if he had done wrong, it was for her; that itself was exhilarating. When she had gone he felt the room too small to hold him and rushed to open the shutters. Let the sun try to knock him down. He took his jacket off; then, remembering the neat patches on his shirt, put it on again quickly. ...
    Mme de Freppel wrote two letters:
    â€œLéonie, my love, I spoke to Émile last night about Edgar. He’s not enthusiastic, he seems to know something, perhaps you’d better have fewer nieces to stay with you for the next month or two, if you can curb your generous soul. I’ll talk to him again, I’ve no doubt I can bring him round in time. Léonie, what strange lives we have had. Sometimes I dream I’m young, I see myself in a glass, my face smooth, and such colour, too. Last night I dreamed we were in a field, I caught my foot and fell, there was water under the grass and I was choking, drowning. I thought you would drag me out. But you didn’t move ...”
    Why am I writing such nonsense? she thought, frowning. She tore off the last lines and scribbled,
“Now for your friend
Sadinsky. He means to go into politics, I can see that. If I help him to get his spoon into the dish, what is there in it for me? Love. M. de F.”
    To Sadinsky she wrote civilly that she had been thinking about his Joan of Arc League. Was the deputy’s wife really the best patroness? The way to approach her would be to make a gift to one of her war charities, a handsome gift.
“But do not give away any money until I advise you. If you have money, you can buy anything in France. Believe me, I shall do my best to help you.”
    Signing her name, she smiled. I’m cleverer than most people, she thought, excited.
    She went out on to the terrace. It was too hot to stand here, and it was happiness. All the roads of the province, she could see two of them sauntering to see what they could pick up in the way of trees, villages, small woods, all the fields in which only women and old men were left to labour, the empty village streets, blanched by