It was nearly midnight before we came to Neuilly and stood awkwardly beside the white cot in the little white room where the Gilded Youth was lying.  How the gilding had fallen off!  All white and broken he lay, a crushed wreck of a man, with the cluttering contrivances of science swathing him, binding him, encasing him, holding him miserably together while the tide of life ran out.  But when he wakened he could smile.  There was real gilding in that smile, the gilding of youth, but he only flashed his eyes upon us for a fleeting second in turning his smile to her—­to the Eager Soul, to her who had brought some new incandescence into his life.  Then we knew why his aunt had said that we should see him.  He would have us who had witnessed the planting of the seed, know how it had flowered.  His smile told us that also.  He could lift no hand to us, and could speak but faintly.  Yet his greeting held something princely in it—­fine and sweet and brave.  Then he did a curious thing.  He began whistling very softly under his breath and between his teeth a queer little tune, that reminded one oddly of the theme of Tschaicovski’s Symphony Pathetique—­the first movement.  As he whistled he turned from Henry and me and looked at the Eager Soul, who smiled back intelligently, and when she smiled he stopped.  We could not understand their signals.  But whatever it was so far as it pretended to a show of courage, we knew that it was a gorgeous bluff.  In the fleeting glance that he gave us, he told us the truth; and we knew that he was pretending to the others that he did not know.  We made some cheerful nothings in our talk, and would have gone but he held us.  The Eager Soul looked at her watch, gave him some medicine, which we took to be a heart stimulant; for he revived under it, and said to me: 

“Remember—­that night at Douaumont?”

“Where you whistled the ‘Meditation from Thais,’ in the moonlight?”

“Yes,” he murmured, “and we—­watched—­the trucks—­come out of the mist—­full of life—­and go into the mist,—­toward death.”

“Wonderful—­wasn’t it!” sighed one of us.

“Symbolic,” he whispered.  And our eyes followed his to the vivid face of the Eager Soul, in the halo of her nurse’s cap.  She was exceedingly glorious, and animate and beautiful.  And he was passing into the mist, out toward death.  He saw that he had got the figure to me, and smiled.  Then suddenly something came into his face from afar, and he seemed to know that his frail craft had mounted the out-going tide.  Slowly, very slowly life began to fade from his face.  Further and further from shore the tide was bearing him.  We seemed to be on the pier.  The Eager Soul even leaned forward and put out a pretty hand, and waved at him.  He signalled back with a twitch of his lips that was meant for a smile.  And then we at the pier lost the last gleam of life and saw only the broken bark, wearily riding the racing tide.