"Had you better smoke?" she said. "Won't
it start your cough?"
He lifted an imperious hand. "It won't kill me if it does. Why
are you looking at me like that?"
"Like what?" she said.
"As if I'd come back from the dead." He frowned at her abruptly
though his eyes still smiled. "Don't!" he said.
She smiled in answer, and picked up the matchbox. It was of silver
and bore his initials.
"Yes," Guy said, "I've taken great care of it, haven't I? It's
been my mascot all these years."
She took out a match and struck it without speaking. There was
something poignant in her silence. She was standing again in the
wintry dark of her father's park, pressed close to Guy's heart, and
begging him brokenly to use that little parting gift of hers with
thoughts of her when more than half the world lay between them.
Guy's cigarette was in his mouth. She stooped forward to light it.
Her hand was trembling. In a moment he reached up, patted it
lightly, and took the match from her fingers. The action said more
than words. It was as if he had gently turned a page in the book
of life, and bade her not to look back.
"Now don't you bother about me!" he said. "I'm being good--as you
see. So go and cook the dinner or do anything else that appeals to
your housekeeper's soul! That is, if you feel it's immoral to
smoke a cigarette at this early hour.
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