Janet and Alice had written from Nice that they might be detained for some
time. Gora unpacked her trunk and settled down in the pension with that air
of indestrucible patience that had always made her formidable. She was not
one of Life's favorites, but she had wrung prizes from that unamiable deity
more than once.
Alexina speculated. Gora had all the brains that Mortimer lacked and
commanding traits of character. She was so striking in appearance even now
that people often turned and stared at her. But unless she possessed the
potent spell of woman for man all her gifts would avail her nothing in this
tragic crisis of her life. Did she possess it I No woman could answer.
Certainly Alexina had never seen evidence of it even in Gora's youth;
although to be sure her opportunities had been few. Still...when a woman
possesses the most subtle and powerful of all the fascinations men are
drawn to it, no matter how dark the sky or high the barriers. Nothing is
keener than the animal essence. Still...she had heard that some women
developed it later than others. Alexina feared nothing else.
She fancied that Gora took leave of her with a little indrawn sigh of
relief. It was with difficulty that she repressed her own.
CHAPTER VIII
I
"Can this be Lieutenant James Kirkpatrick?"
Kirkpatrick wheeled about and snatched off his cap.
"Mrs. Dwight, by all that's holy! I never expected any such luck as this!"
They shook hands warmly in the deserted square which had been a shambles
during the first battle of the Marne, and in the days of Caesar and Attila,
of Napoleon the Great and Napoleon the Little.
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