Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/73

Rh tor Carrel had only been there! He's saved such cases.

He need not have died."

And always one asked, Why don't the tears come into this woman's eyes?"

One prayed that they would, and that the stiff, stern figure would relax a little. The gesture with which she raised her tea cup was angular, somnambulistic. The boy stared at her with a round, pallid, and expressionless face.

"You may have another cake, little one," the widow said.

He munched it without words until some one asked:

"And what are you going to do when you grow up, young man?”

His voice was as expressionless as his face.

"I am going to be a soldier, like papa."

The widow made a swift movement.

"You see? And I have had nothing to do with it—nothing at all. It is in the blood of the orphans. Must we lose them, too? Why do you want to be a soldier, son?"

"I want to kill the Germans, because they killed my poor papa."

His face twitched into an expression at last, and, as he continued to sip his tea, great tears rolled down his cheeks and fell into the cup. But the widow didn't cry.