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 always gay with uniforms and noisy with the clatter and clash of steel, as the officers ate and drank at the tables in front of the doors, under the gilded scrollwork and the green shutters.

It was a pretty scene: it was no wonder that she watched it; and no doubt I seemed to her a brute, and a fool to boot, when I pulled her, one day, from her favourite seat and drew the sun-blinds sharply. I could not bear the lewd bold looks those soldiers cast up at her.

She broke out into a low piteous sobbing, and wailed wearily to know what had she done. I kissed her, and knelt to her, and besought her pardon, and blamed my jealous passion, and cursed the world which was not worthy of a look from her.

And then she laughed—no doubt I seemed a fool to her—such a fool, good God!—and shut her hands upon my mouth to silence me, and broke from me and threw the shutter open wide again, laughing still, to get her way thus wilfully.

The cuirassiers in the courtyard of the café down beneath laughed too. A man poor and ugly and jealous—jealous of his wife—is a thing ridiculous to all, no doubt.

They thought me jealous, and they laughed, those handsome, careless, gay youngsters, drinking their breakfast wines under the green vine-leaves A Leaf in the Storm.