Page:Middle Aged Love Stories (IA middleagedlove00bacorich).djvu/159

 They could not know that the woman with the softly parted hair was all a-tremble for romance, thirsty for adventure, bohemian-souled and utterly fearless; they could not see the heart of the little foreigner with the shabby clothes and gray imperial, how it was eaten up with homesickness and regret—with all his gratitude to his gentle hostess—for France, with her queen city, her familiar sights and smells, her zest and color, and more than all, the fishing-coast where his mother had rocked him to sleep in sight of the sails.

They sighed together, and blushed, and glanced quickly aside, and Miss Sabina rose hastily and slipped through the long French window.

"Shall I sing?" she asked, not waiting for an answer to a question of such long usage. While she felt through the dusk to the old pianoforte, M. Laroche lit his cigarette and waited with gentle expectation. The lilacs from the next yard drifted in and met the faint odor from