I am not
quite sure even now. Do you believe it is alive, Phil? Perhaps, at
night, when I am asleep, it becomes alive. . . . This morning I awoke,
laughing, laughing in delight--thinking I heard you laughing, too--as
once--in the dusk where there were many roses and many stars--big stars,
and very, very bright--I saw you--saw you--and the roses--"
She paused with a pained, puzzled look of appeal.
"Where was it, Phil?"
"In Manila town."
"Yes; and there were roses. But I was never there."
"You came out on the veranda and pelted me with roses. There were others
there--officers and their wives. Everybody was laughing."
"Yes--but I was not there, Phil. . . . Who--who was the tall, thin
bugler who sounded taps?"
"Corrigan."
"And--the little, girl-shaped, brown men?"
"My constabulary."
"I can't recollect," she said listlessly, laying the doll against her
breast. "I think, Phil, that you had better be a little quiet now--she
may wish to sleep. And I am sleepy, too," lifting her slender hand as a
sign for him to take his leave.
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