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When Castiglione came on the following afternoon Maria was looking wonderfully well, and so like herself, as she had been within the first year of her marriage, that he could not help looking at her very hard. There was only the small patch of white in her dark hair near the left temple, which Castiglione could not remember; and there was the black frock. She always wore black or grey now, but when she was very young she had liked pretty colours.
Castiglione himself was in uniform, for he thought it possible that he might see Leone, and he would not have broken his promise to the boy for anything. He was not the man to put on his uniform with the idea of looking better in it than in a civilian's clothes, still less had he any thought of recalling old memories to Maria by such theatrical means. Men who are hard hitters are rarely theatrical in small things, though some famous generals, like Napoleon, have been great dramatic artists.