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Now the curtain slides softly up again to the soft tinkle of "Golden-Eyes" hidden laughter. The wise little brain, the soft girl-bosom, housing cunning and bravery—are seeing her way clear, if only the gods who look down on lovers will give her TIME! In the dark casket of the Hun captain's cave she glows—a jewel—a little rare thing of gold and scarlet decked out in siren-fashion, made gorgeous, her gold curls piled high, her throat laced with pearls, her feet in the silken shoes of loot—wrapped with the lace and fur of a fled and vanished French girl, her eyes glinting goldenly, her lips smiling; a poised, jeweled love-bird, "worth waiting for"—vows this Captain Hugo. "TIME—TIME!" —he prays for it, too, "and she will fly to my hand!" Poor pink and gold Love, aghast at the near thing this game can be for poor "Golden-Eyes," spreads his small person between her and the barbarian who sees only the surface sun in her eyes and "nothing of the horror and loathing that move below, and hides his face in her knees. "Uncle Same" glowers in the shadow, in dumb suspicion, bewildered, anxious, shrinking from this strange girl who seemed no longer "Bill's"—watching—waiting.
Captain Hugo had unearthed a bit of his loot that he had dreamed of getting back to Germany if the war was kind. The big chest gave up its treasure of silk and lace, the dainty cob webs that had clothed a French girl in the long-ago peace times, her jewels. her fances and pretty trinkets, the little high-stilted slippers of this age, the gossamer stockings that matched, all eagerly offered to bribe this golden-girl Mars had dropped into the monotony of trench and man life.
Had the Hun seen the glint in her eyes and the face she had in the half-dar, her fingers busy with stolen silk and fur, before she came out to him again to perch on his stolen chest, to coquette with him in the candle shine—"for TIME"—his swimming head would have cleared—and—"Uncle Same" would have understood!
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