Argosy, September 1955 — page 66: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

64 PAUL GALLICO Little Julie’s heart was breaking; the dilapidated, unpainted villa was indeed a disgrace to one of Héloise’s self-importance in the community, though he himself rather liked the soft, weather- worn dove-grey of the bare shingles, and she was making his life a hell, nagging him to secure the money somewhere for a restora- tion. And then there was the fact that he hadn’t had a nip in six weeks and had been stone-cold sober for longer than he could remember. It was perhaps this condition that was responsible for the shock he received one night a week later when, walking in the village— it being too cool to sit in the garden unfortified by Aurac—he encountered Michel Bavasc, the house-painter, out promenading with Céleste, the wealthy miller’s stout and somewhat hirsute daughter, whose dowry would no doubt exceed the hundred thousand francs of Julie. The painter, as he passed and raised his hat, had the grace to blush, but more, he threw the Colonel a look of mingled despair and misery; a look that implored his understanding as a man and, abetted by an almost imperceptible shrug of a shoulder, seemed to ask what the Colonel would have done in similar cir- cumstances. Nor was the Colonel inclined to blame him. Life was inexor- able in grinding out its quota of winners and losers. He himself had not been able to produce anything tangible to aid them. Julie was both wise and loving in not wishing to ruin Michel’s career which indeed she would do if shg forced him to remain as house-painter in Aurance. Michel was pursuing a sensible course, and Céleste would no doubt make him a good and thrifty wife who would keep his socks mended and his accounts in order. But in the clarity of a brain now unfogged by fumes of Aurae the Colonel had a sudden vision or, rather, a recollection of Julie weeping alone down by the river a few nights before, her soft sobs mingling with the chirping of the peeper frogs and the sighing of the wind in the willow trees. He saw her young figure bent in the agony of lost love, the light hair falling over the face buried in her hands; he remembered the delicate contours of the young figure and smelt again the sweet- ness of the perfume that emanated from her. And he knew that he could not bear that this child, who in the years she had worked for them had become dear to his heart, should suffer pain. And at that precise moment, the idea smote him, an idea com- pounded of so many elements that he did not know where they all came from, each dovetailing with the other like the most pre- cise and harmonious military movements, and yet at the same time utterly traitorous to something which for so long he had held ~ <a ‘> ‘ Ph ae vg « i yes » * m be a at es ® ot, a we © >" 4 « - Le = eater a conmicloooks conn: