Without being aware of what she was doing Sally had wandered several yards away from the office door where she originally had intended to remain. Now she went back to its shelter. Here, although she was still able to watch the street, she was not so conspicuous.

A young French officer was also approaching and walking in the opposite direction toward the American.

Sally paid but little attention to either of them until she noticed them stop and almost immediately begin talking to each other in angry tones.

Then curiosity drove her forth from her shelter a second time.

What difficulty between the two men could have occurred in such a short space of time? They could hardly have exchanged a dozen words with each other before the quarreling began. Certainly they were both too angry to pay the slightest attention to her!

She was standing almost within half a dozen yards of them. Then Sally recalled Mrs. Burton’s suggestion that the Camp Fire girls try to become an influence for peace if they observed a misunderstanding between Allied soldiers.

As Sally had a matter-of-fact appreciation of the difference between idealistic theories in life and their practical application, which was rather unusual in so young a girl, it occurred to her at this moment to contemplate how extremely angry her Camp Fire guardian would be, should she attempt to speak to the two soldiers who were strangers to her. Reflecting upon Mrs. Burton’s disapproval should she adopt this method of following her advice, Sally’s brown eyes brightened, one of her infrequent dimples reappeared.

Then her expression changed; in spite of her momentary frivolity she was beginning to feel seriously troubled.

The two soldiers, one a French officer, the other an American private, had neither separated nor ended their misunderstanding.

Sally was only a girl, and one who expended little energy in thinking of the larger problems of life, yet she appreciated that at this time any disagreement between France and the United States in the settlement of the terms of peace would be a political calamity. Surely, any personal difficulty between a French and an American soldier was likewise a misfortune. One did not like to think that men who had been lately united against a common enemy and fighting for a common ideal could so soon quarrel with each other.

She moved a little nearer. She then saw the American soldier raise his arm as if intending to strike his companion, she also saw that the French officer either had forgotten the fact that an officer does not strike a private, or else preferred to ignore it.

Involuntarily Sally called out her feeble protest. No one heeded her. However, the officer, who was older, at the same moment evidently appreciating that he must not participate in a street fight, turned and without another word to his companion moved away.

He came back toward Sally Ashton.

This time she studied him more attentively. The French officer was young and of medium height with fine dark eyes and a rather prominent nose.

“Lieutenant Fleury!”

Sally extended her hand.

“How strange to meet you here in Paris so unexpectedly! Your sister, Yvonne, thinks you are with the French Army of Occupation. At least this is the last news I heard of you. Small wonder I have been so interested in watching you for the last few moments. I must unconsciously have realized that I knew you!”

The young officer flushed.

“I wish you had not seen me in these last few minutes. But perhaps you were my good angel, although I was as unaware of your presence as I was at the time you nursed me back to health in the ruined château near your old farmhouse. At least I was preserved from striking an American soldier! I do not see now how I could so far have forgotten myself! Will you wait here a short time until I am able to find him and apologize. I believe the fault was entirely mine, although at the beginning of our conversation I thought he said something discourteous about the French people. No, my sister does not know I am in Paris. I hoped to come out to Versailles tomorrow to see her and her friends and to explain.”

The French officer swung round, only to find the young American soldier standing within a few feet of him.

“I am extremely sorry, sir,” he began, “I believe I was rude, but I have been in a prison camp in Germany for the past few months and I am afraid I have rather lost my nerve. I have been asking a simple question for the past hour until I was under the impression that no one was willing to tell me what I wished to know. After all perhaps no one has understood!”

For a moment, while Lieutenant Fleury was endeavoring to make his own apology, Sally Ashton stood quietly regarding them both.

The following moment she was standing between them.

“Dan Webster, perhaps you will allow me to introduce you to Lieutenant Fleury, since I have the honor of knowing you both. Certainly I never expected to see either of you. Come home with me to Tante and Peggy, won’t you, Dan? They both think you are still a prisoner in Germany, although we have been hoping for word of your release each day.”

Subtly the tones of Sally Ashton’s voice had changed, her manner had grown gentler.

Ever since they were children, because of the close intimacy between their families, she and Dan had known each other. Two years before they had spent the summer in camp together “Behind the Lines” in southern California. Soon after, Dan, who at the time was too young for the draft, had volunteered so that they had not met since then.

At present Sally was not greatly puzzled by her own failure to recognize Dan Webster until he was sufficiently near to have a close look into his face.

The Dan she remembered had been unusually tall and vigorous, with broad shoulders and a heavy, muscular frame. This Dan was extremely thin with stooping shoulders, his ruddy skin an ugly yellow pallor.

He also appeared confused by Sally’s unexpected greeting.

“I say, it is good to see some one I know once again,” he murmured a moment later. “I have had no letters from home in months and did not understand that you and Tante and Peggy were still in France. I do hope you are going to be able to give me a great deal to eat. I was trying to find a restaurant where I could get something like an American meal when your friend and I came rather close to a misunderstanding.”

By this time Dan was smiling, displaying his strong white teeth, and the deep blue of his eyes, which with his black hair was the family characteristic of both his mother and her twin sister, Mrs. Burton.

However, at this instant, Miss Patricia, coming out of the express office to seek for Sally, at once assumed command of the situation.

CHAPTER XIII
A Pilgrimage Into France’s Holy Land

It was natural that David Hale, one of the young American secretaries of the Peace Conference, should come frequently to the charming house filled with American girls at Versailles.

Having won both Mrs. Burton’s and Miss Patricia Lord’s favor, he had been cordially invited. He had also plenty of time as his duties by no means kept him constantly engaged.

It was during the first week of March and President Wilson having returned to the United States for a brief period, there was a temporary lull in the activities of the Peace Conference.

One morning, opening a note at the breakfast table, Miss Patricia Lord frowned and glanced over toward Mrs. Burton. At the same instant the Camp Fire guardian was reading a letter of her own, and although aware of Miss Patricia’s gaze, made no effort to return it, or reply in any fashion.

Under the present circumstances, which she chanced to understand, the first remark must emanate from Miss Patricia.

“Young David Hale has written me to say that if we like he has been able to obtain permission for us to make a day’s journey along the edge of one of the French battlefields. I presume this may be partly due to the fact that I told him the other evening it was my intention to devote the rest of my life and fortune toward helping with the restoration work in France. I also told him that it was probably my wish to erect a monument to the heroes who died for France near one of the battlefields, although I did not say what the character of the monument would be,” Miss Patricia declared, finally breaking the silence.

“Do you mean that it may be possible for any of the Camp Fire girls to make the journey with you?” Bettina Graham demanded impetuously and then subsided, observing that Miss Patricia was not in a mood at present to open a discussion with her.

“Yes,” Mrs. Burton returned quietly, “it sounds like a remarkable opportunity, Aunt Patricia. I have a letter from Senator Duval saying he has been pleased to use his influence to accomplish what Mr. Hale requested. And, although the French Government is not for the present permitting tourists to journey over her battlefields, a special concession has been made in view of your services and your desire to aid France. Senator Duval would like to travel with us, as it is necessary we should have a Frenchman of authority and influence as our companion. I suppose you do not mind, Aunt Patricia, as there is no danger from a German shell these days and I shall try to keep out of trouble?”

Refusing to reply to Mrs. Burton’s final remark, Miss Patricia arose.

“We are to leave Paris at five o’clock next Thursday morning and travel a number of hours by train. When we arrive at our first destination an automobile belonging to the French government will meet us. We will then motor to whatever portion of the battleground we are to be permitted to see. Our party can be made up of six persons. This will mean, besides Mrs. Burton and myself, four Camp Fire girls.

“Polly, kindly decide who the four girls are to be.”

And Miss Patricia Lord departed, leaving Mrs. Burton to a by no means simple task.

Notwithstanding, it was finally arranged that Bettina Graham, Peggy Webster, Yvonne Fleury and Marguerite Arnot should compose the number, two of them Americans and two French girls.

Six days later, in the darkness and cold of an early spring morning, the party of six women, accompanied by the French Senator and David Hale left Paris, arriving a little before noon at a French wayside station where the line of railroad communication direct from Paris had never been destroyed throughout the war. Awaiting them was not one but two motors, each containing a French officer as well as the chauffeur. Into one Miss Patricia Lord, Bettina Graham, Marguerite Arnot and David Hale entered and the other was filled by Mrs. Burton, Senator Duval, Yvonne Fleury and Peggy Webster.

By noon a little pale March sunshine had come filtering through the clouds, faintly warming the earth.

A curious scene surrounded the wayside station. Stacked in long lines down the road leading from it were broken and disused cannons and machine guns, German and French. There were also giant piles of steel helmets, pieces of shell, twisted and rusted bayonets, all the tragic refuse of a cleared battleground after the fury of war has passed.

The spectacle was too grim to inspire much conversation.

Further along there were open spaces which showed where the French and American camps had stood behind the fighting lines. But the tents themselves had been folded and the paraphernalia of life moved on with the Army of Occupation to the left bank of the Rhine.

In the present vicinity there were no birds to be seen, no trees, no signs of vegetation, only the desolation which follows on the heels of war.

Bettina Graham, who was sitting next David Hale in the rapidly moving French car, shivered and clasped her hands tightly together inside her fur muff.

“Is this your first visit to the devastated French country, Miss Graham? I wonder if you won’t regret the trip? It does not seem to me that girls and women should look upon such things as we may see today, except of course Miss Lord, who appears to have a special reason. Yet she insists as many Americans as possible should visit the French battleground later when peace is declared. Not until then can they realize what France has endured. I don’t know whether I agree with her.”

Bettina smiled, but not very gaily.

“After all you realize, Mr. Hale, that your opinion will not affect Aunt Patricia. And we of course have seen portions of the devastated French country in our work on the Aisne, but nothing like this.”

In the few weeks of their acquaintance David Hale and Bettina had become fairly intimate friends. Indeed the young man had confided to Bettina his ambition for the future. It seemed that he had not a large fortune of his own, yet nevertheless wished to devote his time and energy not to the mere making of money, but to becoming as he expressed it, “a soldier of peace” serving his country in times of peace as a soldier serves her in war, for the honor rather than the material gain. He had been working in a diplomatic position in Washington before the entry of the United States into the war and because his work was considered of too great importance to resign, he had not been allowed to enter the army. Sent afterwards to France on a special mission he had been retained to serve as an under-secretary of the Peace Congress. At present David Hale believed that his future might depend upon the reputation he acquired among the older and more celebrated men with whom he was associated.

And for the first time in her life Bettina was enjoying an intimacy with a young fellow near her own age who was interested in the things in which she was interested.

Without being handsome David Hale had a fine strong face with interesting dark gray eyes and a smile which illuminated his entire expression.

During the next quarter of an hour he and Bettina talked but little, the greater part of the time listening to the French officer who was describing to Miss Patricia the fighting which had taken place in the neighborhood.

“It was here that the German troops broke through three times and three times the French with one half their number repelled them. It is possible, Madame, that the French government might be willing to allow a portion of this ground to be used for a monument should you or your countrymen and women desire so to honor France.”

But Miss Patricia answered nothing.

They were approaching a piece of ground which had once been a field, but now instead of the bare and upturned soil one saw little mounds and wooden and iron crosses set in long uneven rows. Springing up amid the crosses were crocuses, the first shoots of hyacinths, of narcissus and daffodils.

The Frenchmen and the young American removed their hats.

“A bit of France’s holy ground,” the French officer again explained to Miss Patricia. “Over in that field are buried the Allies, whom no difference of opinion, no unfaith can ever estrange, Americans, British and French are sleeping side by side.”

It must have been through Mrs. Burton’s request that at this moment her motor which was in advance halted and its occupants climbed down.

“Senator Duval wishes to see if a friend of his lies here, Aunt Patricia,” Mrs. Burton explained.

She then turned to Senator Duval:

“No, I would rather not look with you if you don’t mind. Some of the others in the party will wish to. I find it too saddening to see more than one must.”

Just beyond the hallowed ground there was a little hill, which by some strange freak of circumstance was covered with a group of young fruit trees which had escaped the surrounding devastation.

Mrs. Burton, Miss Lord, Yvonne Fleury and the two French officers moved over toward this hill and climbed to its summit.

The others followed Senator Duval upon his quest. Purposely Bettina Graham had separated herself from David Hale, allowing him to take charge of the young French girl, Marguerite Arnot. Several times Bettina had believed they seemed unusually interested in each other and it was not her idea in any way to demand too much of the young man’s attention.

“From here one has a surprising view of the French country,” Captain Lamont, who had been Miss Patricia’s guide, explained.

“Over there toward the southeast is Château-Thierry and not far off the Forest of Argonne. I wonder if you know that until the American soldiers fought so gallantly and so victoriously in this same forest of Argonne it had been thought throughout all French history an impossible place of battle. So you see you came, saw and conquered,” the French officer finished gallantly.

“Nonsense!” Miss Patricia returned in her fiercest manner. “The one thing I am most weary of hearing discussed is which of the allied nations won the war, as if one had a greater claim than the rest, save the claim that France has of having lost more of her men.”

“Polly Burton,” suddenly Miss Patricia seemed to have forgotten the rest of her audience, “I have been thinking not only today but for many days what character of monument I should like to be allowed to build in France. Probably the government may not permit me to do what I wish, but the idea I have been looking for has come to me, come from that resting place of the allied soldiers over there.”

And Miss Patricia waved her hand toward the burying ground.

“Here I should like on this very hill top to build a home for the children of the soldiers who have died in France, a home where they may live, play and work together, speaking the same languages, thinking the same thoughts. We are struggling for a better understanding, a deeper unity between the allied nations. It can come best through the children whose fathers have died for the same cause. After we grow old I fear many of us learn nothing and forget nothing. And I should like to inscribe above the door of the home I shall build ‘Glorious France, the Battleground of Liberty.’”

Then a little abashed of her outburst and scarcely conscious of the importance of her suggestion, Miss Lord turned and went her way apart from the others. She was not to know at that time how her idea spoken with such impulsiveness and with her usual generosity was later to bear richer fruit than she then dreamed.

However, neither Mrs. Burton, the two French officers, nor Bettina and Yvonne failed to realize the significance of her utterance.

CHAPTER XIV
Foundation Stones

Some days later a number of guests were entertained informally by Miss Lord at her house in Versailles. The trip into the French country had been depressing and if Miss Patricia’s ideas for future work in France were still a little far distant, this was not true with the plans of the Camp Fire girls.

For weeks they had been meeting other groups of girls in the city of Paris and interesting them in their program for establishing a French Camp Fire organization. They had written to the central organization in the United States asking them to get in touch with the French for a mutual exchange of ideas. Moreover, Mrs. Burton had also persuaded a woman of unusual charm and high position to take over the work of the French Camp Fire and become its first guardian.

But the group of girls who were invited by Miss Lord to her home at Versailles were the original group of poor French girls who were Marguerite Arnot’s friends.

Miss Patricia also suggested to Yvonne Fleury that she include her acquaintances in the same invitation.

“As a matter of fact, Yvonne,” she insisted, “if democracy is to be the order of the day, I don’t see why we should not try to practice it among the groups of Camp Fire girls. I’ve an idea poor girls may be more in need of just the help the Camp Fire can give than the rich. Also I would like to see a little more democracy practiced in our own household at the present time. You girls and Polly Burton must remember that I was once as poor a girl as one could find in the county of Cork and that is saying a good deal. No one need think I forget it! Now I have no mind to be spoiling any of you by our own fine living for the next few months. This is merely my way of celebrating the dawn of peace and perhaps of rewarding you girls for the sacrifices you made during the war. But if your friends, Yvonne, think they are too fine to meet Marguerite Arnot’s friends and to be members of the same Camp Fire group, then in faith I shall have nothing to do with them and never want them in my house! Of course you may do as you like, Yvonne. Don’t ask them to come here if you think they will object to meeting Marguerite, her friends or me. Neither be a telling of them that Polly Burton is a famous actress and so making them wish to come for that reason. A famous actress Polly may be, but she is often an obstinate and mistaken woman.”

Without allowing Yvonne opportunity to reply, which was altogether like her, Miss Patricia then withdrew.

Nevertheless, Yvonne thought she understood Miss Patricia’s point of view. She also recognized the difficulty which lay behind it.

Originally there had been a mild argument between Mrs. Burton and Miss Patricia on the question of introducing Marguerite Arnot into their Camp Fire family at Versailles. Mrs. Burton was not stupid enough to find fault with Marguerite’s occupation; she had always insisted that she had made her own living by acting from the time she was a young girl, and that therefore persons who felt a sense of superiority to other working women, must also feel superior to her. But she did consider that Miss Patricia had not sufficient knowledge of Marguerite Arnot’s character, or of her previous associations to have so soon invited her into their household. She should have waited until she learned to know her more intimately. There was a possibility that Marguerite herself might not be happy with them under the conditions Miss Patricia had arranged. Her presence might in some way affect the complete happiness of the Camp Fire girls.

But Miss Patricia had prevailed, and Yvonne was fairly well able to guess what she must have said to her adored but often thwarted friend.

“You yourself, Polly Burton, invited Yvonne Fleury into our Camp Fire family when you met on shipboard and knew nothing but what she chose to tell you of herself. You likewise extended the same invitation to Mary Gilchrist. I made no objection. Please remember that Marguerite Arnot is now my choice.”

And of course, since the house at Versailles was Miss Patricia’s and since Mrs. Burton’s objection had not been a serious one, Miss Patricia had had her way.

Up to the present time, Mrs. Burton would have been the first person to acknowledge that she had found no criticism in Marguerite Arnot’s behavior. Never had she showed the slightest effort to take advantage of Miss Patricia’s kindness. Moreover, Mrs. Burton, and each one of the Camp Fire girls, had personal reasons for being grateful to her. She had made several of the girls prettier clothes in the last few weeks than they had ever possessed in their lives.

And she always seemed to make a special effort in her work for Mrs. Burton.

So Yvonne went away to her room where she wrote notes asking her four girl friends, who formed the nucleus of another French Camp Fire unit, to luncheon on the following Saturday. She had sufficient faith to believe they would not feel as Miss Patricia had intimated and her faith was justified.

Mrs. Burton had invited as her guest, Madame Clermont, who had promised to take charge of the Camp Fire organization in France. Madame Clermont was in reality an American woman, but she had lived long in France and both looked and talked like a French woman, so that it was difficult not to think of her as one. As a matter of fact she had studied music in Paris for fifteen years and sung at the Opera Comique before marrying a Frenchman.

She and Mrs. Burton had known each other slightly for some time, but their acquaintance had developed into a friendship in the interest of the new Camp Fire movement for French as well as for American girls.

In the original plan for Miss Lord’s luncheon party, there had been no idea of including any masculine guests. As a matter of fact in a somewhat skilful fashion they invited themselves. But since Miss Patricia did not refuse to allow them to be present, she must really have desired their society.

After meeting Sally Ashton so unexpectedly in the streets of Paris, Dan Webster had returned home with them for the evening, but later had received official permission to spend several weeks with his sister, Peggy Webster, and his aunt, Mrs. Burton, in the interval before going home to the United States.

Dan was ill from starvation and from his long confinement in a German prison. Mrs. Burton therefore thought it best that he secure a room in their immediate neighborhood and have his meals with them.

This arrangement did not please Miss Patricia, who appreciated the embarrassment of including one young man in a family of girls. However, as Dan was Mrs. Burton’s nephew and assuredly needed care, she had made no protest.

Later, as usual Miss Patricia had devoted herself to spoiling Dan rather more than any one else.

On the day of her luncheon it was Dan who pleaded that Aunt Patricia allow him to appear. Otherwise he was sure he must suffer with hunger through a long winter day. No food to be had at any restaurant could compare with Miss Patricia’s. As Miss Patricia agreed with him in this and her own housekeeping was one of her vanities, Dan had been the entering masculine wedge into the luncheon party.

The fact that Dan Webster must not be the only man present, had been Lieutenant Fleury’s plea. Besides, he and Miss Patricia were such old friends, after his visit to her at her farmhouse on the Aisne, that Lieutenant Fleury had protested he could not endure to be cut off from Miss Patricia’s society for a single day.

Hearing of Dan’s and Lieutenant Fleury’s good fortune, David Hale had simply looked at Miss Patricia with such unuttered reproach, that she really did weaken to the extent of inviting him.

“Young man, I presume you think one more guest cannot make any difference when I have already asked twice as many people as my house can accommodate. You are mistaken. Nevertheless, come along to lunch if you like. No one will have enough to eat, but I would have you on my conscience if you should feel hurt at being left out. Not that you would have the faintest right to be hurt, David Hale. You are absolutely nothing to any of us except a new acquaintance.”

After arguing that he was really a great deal more to her than a mere acquaintance, but that Miss Patricia was so far unwilling to acknowledge it, David Hale appeared at the hour of the luncheon with as much cheerfulness as if he had been the most sought after of all the guests.

Following a buffet luncheon, at which the three young men had proved themselves extremely useful in helping to serve the guests, who could not be seated at the table, they were invited to go away until after a meeting of the Camp Fire.

At the present moment it was four o’clock in the afternoon and the Camp Fire ceremony had ended.

The girls were talking together in small groups, Miss Patricia was not in the room, Mrs. Burton and Madame Clermont were arranging for an engagement for the theatre in Paris.

“I wonder if you would mind singing for us?” Mrs. Burton asked. “Please don’t if it would trouble you. But I’ve an idea no one of the girls here has ever heard so beautiful a voice as yours!”

Madame Clermont smiled.

“Of course I shall love to sing. As a matter of fact I have been wounded that you have not asked me before. So it does not require one half that Irish flattery of yours to persuade me! Have you any of your Camp Fire music here with you?”

The next half hour the Camp Fire girls listened for the first time in their lives to the Camp Fire music sung by a great artist.

In the meantime Miss Patricia wandered back into her drawing room, bringing with her the three young men whom she had found in hiding in her little private sitting room on the second floor of the house.

Later Miss Patricia asked for the final song. Madame Clermont had just announced that she could sing but one more song.

“Then do sing something more adapted to your voice. This Camp Fire music is fanciful and pretty, but it is intended for young girls and not for you,” Miss Patricia commented with her usual directness.

“Hasn’t some one written a song of peace? We have heard enough of the Hymn of Hate for the past four years?”

Madame Clermont, who evidently understood and was amused by Miss Patricia’s plain speaking turned at once to answer.

“No, Miss Patricia, I have not yet learned a new hymn of peace. We must wait until peace actually arrives before the great song of it can be written. But I would like you to give me your opinion of a song I have just set to music. The verses I found in a New York newspaper and think very wonderful. They tell the story of the visit of a King to France in the old days and then of the coming of our President. I hope you may at least admire the poem as much as I do, even though I may have failed with the music.”

Madame Clermont’s voice was a mezzo soprano with a true dramatic quality. Into her present song she put the emotion which France and America had been sharing in the past few weeks.

Having finished Madame Clermont came and stood before Miss Patricia.

“I hope my song was not too long and that I have not bored you. Thank you for my charming afternoon. I hope I may come to see you at some other time.”

Although intending no ungraciousness, Miss Patricia did not reply, instead allowing Mrs. Burton to answer for her. And this was because on one of the few occasions in her life she was permitting herself the enjoyment of a few, hardly wrung tears. Madame Clermont’s song had stirred Miss Patricia’s gallant spirit, with its warm sympathy and love of justice.

CHAPTER XV
An Intimate Conversation

“Do you like it here, Marguerite? Are you never lonely for the little room in the old house in Paris?”

Marguerite Arnot was seated before a window of a sunny room on the third floor of Miss Patricia’s house in Versailles. The walls were papered with a bright paper, the furniture covered in French chintz and on the table nearby were a heap of soft materials of many colors.

Marguerite was sewing on a piece of blue chiffon. She lifted her eyes from her work to smile on the younger girl beside her who was also occupied in the same fashion.

“Lonely, Julie, for the tiny quarters and the darkness and the dilapidated old house? No, cherie, I am never lonely for unlovely things. But sometimes I do feel lonely for you and for Paris, perhaps because I do not altogether belong here amid so many girls who are strangers to me and amid a greater luxury than I have ever known.”

With a little sigh half of regret and half of physical content, the girl dropped her sewing into her lap for a moment, to gaze admiringly about the charming room.

“I am beginning to enjoy the wealth and beauty and ease too much, Julie. I do not like even to confess to you how I shall regret having to return to the old struggle when the home here is closed and Miss Lord goes back to the devastated French country to continue the reclamation work there. That is what she looks forward to doing. This house was rented only for a season as a holiday place for herself and her friends. When summer arrives and the Peace Conference is probably over, I shall have to go back to the old life in Paris. Still, Julie, you need not look so unhappy! The life we lead is no more difficult for me than for you and indeed as I am older, it should be less so!”

Marguerite Arnot’s present companion was the young French girl, Julie Dupont, to whom the Camp Fire girls had been introduced some time before when Julie was living with a group of friends in a tiny apartment in Paris. During the past few days the young girl had been sharing Marguerite’s room in Miss Lord’s home in Versailles.

Upon learning that Julie, who had always been her devoted friend and admirer, had lost her position and was also ill, Marguerite had decided that she must return to Paris to care for her. Her other friends were too much occupied and Marguerite also understood they could scarcely afford for Julie to continue as a member of their household unless she were able to pay her share of the expenses.

Having saved a little money of her own from the generous sum Miss Patricia paid for her work, Marguerite felt able to bear the responsibility. There was no bond between her and Julie save one of affection, due chiefly to the younger girl’s ardent attachment, nevertheless Marguerite acknowledged its claim.

Miss Patricia, when Marguerite attempted to explain the situation, at first had declined positively to release her from her obligation. Afterwards Miss Patricia invited Julie to spend a few days with her friend while she recovered her strength.

Yet at present it appeared that the brief visit might lengthen indefinitely, Miss Patricia having since decided that Marguerite had too much sewing to accomplish alone and that Julie must remain to assist her.

It developed later that the young French girl’s illness had not been serious. Indeed Marguerite had suspected that it might have been partly due to design. So fervently had Julie desired to see her again, that the illness had doubtless been exaggerated in order to accomplish her purpose. Before this occasion Marguerite had reason to believe Julie’s methods in achieving her purposes were not always perfectly scrupulous.

Now the young girl shook her head with rather an odd expression on her face. It was a clever face and might have been a beautiful one save that it was too thin and sallow and almost too clever. It was perhaps the cleverness of a child who has had to depend too much upon her own resources with no family and few friends to feel an interest in her.

“I don’t see, Marguerite, why you speak of returning to Paris unless you like! The life is harder for you than for me for a number of reasons which we both understand without having to discuss them. Besides, I shall not go back unless you do. I shall always find some reason why we should continue to live together.”

If Marguerite Arnot was not especially pleased by this intimation, she merely smiled:

“I wonder if you would mind informing me, Julie, how I shall manage not to return to my former work in Paris? I certainly hope to be sufficiently fortunate to find persons there who will allow me to sew for them. You and I know no other trade and I don’t think either of us is about to inherit a fortune.”

With a quickness and dexterity, suggesting a kitten leaping at a ball, Julie, threading a fresh needle, plunged it into her sewing.

“No, you have not yet inherited a fortune, but you have had an old woman, said to be fabulously wealthy, take an immense fancy to you. I think, Marguerite, that unless Miss Lord does something really worth while for you, you will have managed very badly. She may make you her heiress.”

The older girl frowned.

“Don’t talk childish nonsense, Julie, as if you had only read fairy stories. Besides, you make us both appear very ungrateful. You must realize that Miss Lord cares more for Mrs. Burton than any one in the world. Moreover, there were seven other girls living in her home before her eyes ever rested upon me. Perhaps one of them would be equally willing to inherit her fortune. Vera Lagerloff is poor and Miss Patricia is particularly fond of her. Vera has told me she expects to remain with Miss Lord in France and return with her to the reclamation work. Besides I really do not think that Miss Patricia displays the slightest sign of surrendering her fortune to any one just at present. Let’s talk of something else.”

Holding up to the light the piece of blue chiffon upon which she was sewing, Marguerite studied it for a moment her attention absorbed by what she was doing.

Julie stopped her work to look at her.

The afternoon sun shone on the older girl’s heavy dark hair, revealing the pure oval of her face, her clear, white skin, the delicate pointed chin and large grey eyes.

Julie then fell to sewing again more rapidly than before.

“Oh well, I don’t see why I am not allowed to say what I wish! There is no harm. You are always too afraid of realities, that is why I do not think, Marguerite, that you are suited to making your own way. But of course, any one who is as pretty as you are, is sure to marry fairly soon, so I suppose I need not trouble about your future!”

This time Marguerite Arnot, in spite of her annoyance, laughed.

“See here, Julie, what a ridiculous child you are. Some of the time you are so wise that one forgets you are only fourteen. Yet you are old enough to understand that I can never marry. In the first place even in ordinary times no French girl marries without her dot and I have nothing. Besides, the war has destroyed nearly a million and a half of our men. If I possessed a dowry perhaps I might some day marry a wounded soldier in order to care for him; I suppose a good many French girls will do this. I do not think I altogether envy them.”