CHAPTER XIX
THEY had taken the children into the house and Freder's eyes sought Maria, who was kneeling in the street, among the last remaining children, consoling them, and bestowing her loving smile upon weeping and bewildered eyes.
Freder ran across to them and carried Maria into the house.
"Don't forget," he said, letting her down upon a couch before the blazing fire in the entrance hall, and holding captive in his longing arms her half-lying, half-sitting, gently resisting form, "that Death and madness and something very like destruction' of the world have passed very close by us—and that, after all that has happened, I do not even know the colour of your eyes—and that you have not yet kissed me once by your own free will..."
"Dearest," said Maria, leaning towards him, so that her
