afterward, though my father and brother were both there! I was far off in Brittany, and the trains did not run. That is what is wonderful, that you are here, telling me this! We,–we were taught from childhood that some day the Germans would come; we grew up under that threat. But you were so safe, with all your wheat and corn. Nothing could touch you, nothing!”
Claude dropped his eyes. “Yes,” he muttered, blushing, “shame could. It pretty nearly did. We are pretty late.” He rose from his chair as if he were going to fetch something…. But where was he to get it from? He shook his head. “I am afraid,” he said mournfully, “there is nothing I can say to make you understand how far away it all seemed, how almost visionary. It didn’t only seem miles away, it seemed centuries away.”
“But you do come,–so many, and from so far! It is the last miracle of this war. I was in Paris on the fourth day of July, when your Marines, just from Belleau Wood, marched for your national fete, and I said to myself as they came on, ‘That is a new man!’ Such heads they had, so fine there, behind the ears. Such discipline and purpose. Our people laughed and called to them and threw them flowers, but they never turned to look… eyes straight before. They passed like men of destiny.” She threw out her hands with a swift movement and dropped them in her lap. The emotion of that day came back in her face. As Claude looked at her burning cheeks, her burning eyes, he understood that the strain of this war had given her a perception that was almost like a gift of prophecy.
A woman came up the hill carrying a baby. Mlle. de Courcy went to meet her and took her into the house. Claude sat
