seven-league boots and annihilated the space between the wall under her
elbows and the gardens of Serbelloni. Fitzgerald half understood the
thought. "Isn't Mr. Breitmann just a bit of a mystery to you?" she
asked. The seven-league boots had returned at a bound.

"In some ways, yes." He rather resented the abrupt angle; it was not
in poetic touch with the time being.

"He is inclined to be too much reserved. But last night Mr. Ferraud
succeeded in tearing down some of it. If I could put in a book what
all you men have seen and taken part in! Mr. Breitmann would be almost
handsome but for those scars."

He kicked the turf at the foot of the wall. "In Germany they are
considered beauty-spots."

"I am not in sympathy with that custom."

"Still, it requires courage of a kind."

"The noblest wounds are those that are carried unseen. Student scars
are merely patches of vanity."

"He has others besides those. He was nearly killed in the Soudan."
Fitzgerald was compelled to offer some defense for the absent. That
Breitmann had lied to him, that his appearance here had been in the
regular order of things, did not take away the fact that the Bavarian
was a man and a brave one. Closely as he had watched, up to the
present he had learned absolutely nothing; and to have shown Breitmann
the telegram would have accomplished nothing further than to have put