Page:The four horsemen of the Apocalypse - (Los cuatro jinetes de Apocalipsis) (IA cu31924014386738).djvu/422

 whatever money was needed for household expenses. Never had he been in such prosperous condition. War had its good side, too … but not wishing to break away from old customs, he announced that once more he would mount the service stairs in order to bear away a basket of bottles.

After her sister's departure, Doña Luisa went alone to the churches until Chichí in an outburst of devotional ardor, suddenly surprised her with the announcement:

"Mamá, I am going with you!"

The new devotee was no longer agitating the household by her rollicking, boyish joy; she was no longer threatening the enemy with imaginary dagger thrusts. She was pale, and with dark circles under her eyes. Her head was drooping as though weighed down with a set of serious, entirely new thoughts on the other side of her forehead.

Doña Luisa observed her in the church with an almost indignant jealousy. Her headstrong child's eyes were moist, and she was praying as fervently as the mother … but it was surely not for her brother, Julio had passed to second place in her remembrance. Another man was now completely filling her thoughts.

The last of the Lacours was no longer a simple soldier, nor was he now in Paris. Upon her return from Biarritz, Chichí had listened anxiously to the reports from her little sugar soldier. Throbbing with eagerness, she wanted to know all about the dangers which he had been experiencing; and the young warrior "in the auxiliary service" told her of his restlessness in the office during the interminable days in which the troops were battling around Paris, hearing afar off the boom of the artillery. His father had wished to take him with him to Bordeaux, but the administrative confusion of the last hour had kept him in the capital.