But if they lived to-day, my father and grandfather, they would not be
traitors. They would wear, like me, the uniform of France."
He smiled, and I knew once for all that I could never hate him; that
mere envy and a shame of it were the worst that I could feel. Everything
about him won me, his simplicity, his fine pride, his clearness of eye
and voice, his look of a swift, polished sword blade. I had never seen
a man like him. The Duchess of Raincy-la-Tour would be a lucky woman; so
much was plain.
I found a seat on the window ledge, the girl remained kneeling by him,
and he told us his story, always in that quaint, formal speech. As
it went on it absorbed me. I even forgot those clasped hands for an
occasional instant. In every detail, in every quiet sentence, there
was some note that brought before me the Firefly's achievements, the
marauding airships he had climbed into the air to meet, the foes he had
swooped from the blue to conquer, his darts into the land of his enemies
where there was a price upon his head.
The story had to do with a night when he had left the French lines
behind him.
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