But from the valley of vanity she suddenly flew up to wonder. "He does
that for me!" looking at herself in the mirror of her mind. "He does it
for me!" But of what use to look at the daylight image of herself--the
khaki figure, the driver? "For he must be looking at glory as I do." The
Russian said: "Love is an illusory image." "Isn't it strange how these
human creatures can cast it like a net out of their personality?..."
Vanity, creeping above love, beat it down like a stick beats down a
fire; it was too easy to-day; he gave her nothing left to wish for; the
spell over him, she felt, was complete, and now she had nothing else to
do but develop her own. And this she had instantly less inclination to
do. But, guided by his bright wits, he too withdrew, let the tacit
assumption of intimacy drop between them, and their walk by the Moselle
was filled by her talk of the Russian prisoners and Verdun.
She glanced at him from time to time, and would have grown more silent,
but by his light questions he kept her talking briskly on, offering her
no new proof, until she grew unsure and wondered whether she had been
mistaken; and, the hour striking for her supper in the town, she went to
it, filled anew with his charm and her anxiety. Other meetings came,
when, thrilling with the see-saw of belief and doubt, they watched each
other with absorbed attention, and in their fragile and unconfessed
relationship sometimes one was the victor and sometimes the vanquished.
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