In the morning Kendall was given orders to leave that night for the headquarters of the Second Division, which lay not distant from Meaux—that splendid body of old Regulars and Marines who had but a few weeks before proved the worth of the American soldier to the Hun and to the Allied armies by its splendidly achieved defense of the Paris-Metz highway—and there to gather certain information on shoes and ships and sealing-wax and cabbages and cooties and morale and crops and transport. He was to acquire this information with all possible despatch and accuracy, and to return to Paris with his report. An army automobile, carrying certain other officers, would leave 10 rue Ste.-Anne at nine o’clock that evening.

So he was going to the front. He was actually to penetrate to those not distant battle-lines and to hear the sound of guns and himself to come under hostile fire.... He was not, then, to rest safely in Paris for the duration of the war; was not to return to America a veteran of the roll-top desk and the ink-well! It was only for a space of days, but he would actually have been there, actually have set his feet in a trench—to be a part of a combat division. He was delighted.... He hoped something would happen, that his days at the front might not be uneventful, that he might see and take part in some manifestation of real war. His sentiments were very boyish. Why, he might actually be wounded, and so entitled to wear on his sleeve a golden wound chevron! He found himself close to hoping it would be so, and, with a sudden assertion of common sense, laughed at himself when he discovered he was actually selecting the part of his anatomy in which he preferred to receive his wound. He had decided on a leg, the fleshy part of the leg. That would not be serious, would not incapacitate him for more than a few days or weeks. It was really a glowing prospect.... And it would make him a veteran!

However, going to the front that night was unhandy. He had a rendez-vous with Andree and an appointment to dine with Monsieur Robert.... But that would be possible. Number 10 rue Ste.-Anne was just around the corner from Marty’s. He could dine and then hasten to be where his orders called him.... Andree was eclipsed by the adventure.

At noon he packed such things as were necessary and whisked them by taxicab to rue Ste.-Anne where he left them in charge of a sergeant in the Assistant Provost Marshal’s office. This left him free until nine o’clock.... He was proud that his equipment contained a steel helmet and gas-mask.

It was an exultant and excited young man who waited for Andree at the Metro station in the Place de la Concorde that evening. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to impress her with the fact that he was a real soldier and was going into danger. He even rehearsed the nonchalant speech which would announce it to her.... And at last she appeared—again in white, again with that quaint air of detachment and concentration, and still very lovely in her fragile, slender way.... Suddenly he was sorry he was going, because it meant an absence from her.

Now she was recognizing him in that delightfully timid way of hers—doubting her welcome until he reassured her.

“Good evening, monsieur,” she said in French. She was always formal in those first few moments.

“I’ve wanted to see you—wanted to see you ever since you left me last night,” he said, rather unexpectedly to himself, especially unexpected in its truth, for it was true, though he realized it only then.

“That is well,” she said, and looked up at him quickly, smilingly, with something shining in her eyes that had never been there before. “And I have thought of you.”

“It has been a long day.... All the days are long because you are not with me.”

“It is true?” She paused, demanding to be assured that he was speaking in earnest, and he took her arm and pressed it to his side. “That is nice,” she said. “You should miss me at all times. Oh yes. Ver’, ver’ much.... And I shall also miss you.”

“My dear,” he said, bending close to her ear, “do you love me?”

“Yes,” she said, simply.

And then he knew that his great news had turned to aloes in his mouth. The thing he had longed to tell her—a little boastfully—he could not bear to tell her now, and he wondered vaguely why it should be so. But he must tell her. He started to do so, and stopped. No—it would do as well after dinner.

“And you?” she said, after a little pause.

“Very much.... Very much....”

“No, no.... I am afraid. It cannot be so. You only say—that is all. You have make me love you—and soon you will go away and leave me to cry.... Yes....”

“And if I do,” he said, striving to tease her, “you will soon find another American. Sure you will.... Vous êtes très-méchante.... Pas fidèle.”

“How can you say? It is not kind. Oh, I am fidèle. You believe? Yes, yes. You believe?”

“Of course, child,” he said, repentantly. “I was only joking.”

“And you—are you fidèle? On the nights when I do not meet with you—what then? Do you see some other girl?... Men are not fidèle.... You see other girl—lots of other girl.”

“Now look here, you mustn’t say that. You’re the only girl in the world I give a snap of my finger for.... Just you.”

“It is well,” she said, contentedly; and then, “We dine with thees yo’ng actor thees evening?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, I am glad.... It is ver’ important. He must like me, and then he will speak for me at the Conservatoire. You must be ver’ good friend to him so that he will speak for me.”

“No, young lady, you keep away from that young actor. He’s too darned handsome. I don’t want him stealing you away from me.”

“Non.... Non.... I do not care for him, only that he speak for me. You must not be afraid.”

“Shall we take a taxi?”

“No. There is much time. A taxi is much expensive. I must not make you spend all your money.”

“That wouldn’t be such a hard job. I haven’t much to spend.”

“It is no matter.... If you had much—that is different—then I would spend.... It is not for money that I know you—oh no. At first—then I do not know what kind of yo’ng man you are.... I take you to that expensive café. It is to punish you because you speak to me as you did.... I did not know you. But now I know you ver’ well. You have been kind.” She nodded her head in punctuation. “You have been always nice and ver’ gentle, and so I see you ver’ often.”

“Nobody could help being gentle with you, mignonne.”

“I do not know,” she said. “The worl’ it is not nice.” She shook her head disapprovingly. “All men are not nice.... It is ver’ hard, and sometimes I am most unhappy. It is so.”

“But you are happy now?”

She pointed her finger down at the sidewalk. “Now—thees minute—yes. In one hour in four hours it may not be so. Who can say?”

It brought him again to his going away, and a real dread of making the announcement to her seized upon him. He was afraid she would cry or do some other equally distressing thing. But that was selfish. He dreaded her crying because it would be unpleasant for himself and was rather ashamed of it. He even fancied he could understand something of how she would actually feel, but he was wrong. He was groping in the darkness, wandering in the darkness of a strange mansion with many rooms and devious passages, and it was inevitable that he should miss his way....

They entered Marty’s and Monsieur Robert came forward to greet them with that delicious, boyish smile of his.

“I am glad you come,” he said, bobbing his head. “My friends they shall be jealous to see me wit’ such pretty girl.”

Andree was very prim and quiet with that quaint attractive quietness that always made Kendall wonder, because he had never seen anything like it. It was a sort of waiting quietness, a kind of recess that Andree retired into to await events, and from which she would emerge impish or girlish or serious, like a child or like a weary woman. One felt she was not present bodily, but was staring at one expectantly to read one’s mood, or, possibly, to read one into the future and to foretell if good or ill were to come out of it. Now she watched Monsieur Robert when he was not looking at her, but the instant his eyes turned toward her her own eyes would hide behind their lashes diffidently.

“What shall we eat?” Monsieur Robert asked, in French. “Potage? Poulet r?ti, cresson? Haricots verts? Salade?... Eh?”

“Sounds good,” said Kendall, but monsieur was looking expectantly to Andree.

“That is well,” she said.

“Pommard?... The vin ordinaire is not for us to-night?”

She was not interested in the wine, and Kendall trusted to the young actor’s judgment. So they gave their order, and were only commencing on the soup when a commotion at the door apprised Kendall that Jacques was coming. Andree had started at the noise.

“It is Jacques,” he said to her. “I told you about him.”

“Yes,” she said, but did not turn her head.

In a moment Jacques paused at the table and stared, drew himself to his full height, threw back his hair from his brow with a flamboyant gesture, and shouted: “A-ah!... A-ah!...”

Kendall was embarrassed. There was no telling what Jacques might say or do, for the man had a rather terrible, if delicious, frankness, and discussed with openness and noise what Kendall was accustomed to hear spoken of in whispers by men alone—and by them in corners.... He had heard Jacques one evening going from table to table—demanding of friends and strangers alike their judgment on a certain phase of the art of making love. Kendall had really been shocked and had looked for somebody to stand up and smite Jacques mightily, but everybody had laughed and answered according to their kind with a frankness equal to Jacques’s.... So now Kendall was apprehensive.

“A-ah!...” said Jacques again, and pointed at Andree. “I ask you if I should not find for you a girl, and you say no. Now I know why.... A-ah!...” He frowned at Andree and waggled his head. “She is nice,” he said, approvingly. Then he appeared to notice Monsieur Robert for the first time and glared at him, glared and poked a long finger under his nose. “He dines with you,” he said, tragically. “You—you make introduce your girl to him.... Oh, là là! What is this? Do you not know that this man steals little girls?... He is ver’ bad. Look you out or he will steal her from you. It is I, Jacques, your friend, who make the warning.” Then suddenly he turned away and flew across the room to kiss a young woman who had just entered with the elderly critic.

Ken was at a loss to know if the fellow had been in earnest or were merely up to his usual capers....

The three at the table chatted, Andree always maintaining that queer reserve, not emerging from her hiding-place, speaking only when directly addressed, and then briefly. Monsieur Robert looked at her frequently, and ever more frequently, for she was a charming picture, and more than once spoke to her in French. She always replied in English.

“I think mademoiselle look ver’ nice on the stage,” he said to Ken. “If only she have the talent.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Pretty eyes and talent for act not always are together,” he said.

“You can’t tell till you try,” said Kendall, colloquially.

“I should like for hear mademoiselle recite one day. Mademoiselle studies Racine?&rd............