One week longer the American Red Cross girls remained in Paris. They were only tourists for these brief, passing days. Yet all the while they were waiting for orders. After having nursed the British soldiers for a number of months, when the Sacred Heart Hospital was no longer in existence, they had concluded to offer their services to France. Therefore, like soldiers, they also were ready upon short notice to start for the front. But in the meantime there was Paris to be investigated, where the October days were like jewels. One saw all that it was humanly possible to see of pictures and people and parks and then came home to dream of the statues in the Luxembourg, or of Venus in her shaded corner in the Louvre, or else of the figure of Victory midway up the Louvre’s central staircase.
[55]
To one another the girls confessed that it was difficult to think of war so near at hand, or of the experiences through which they had so lately passed. Yet one saw the streets full of soldiers and knew that a great line of fortifications encircled Paris, such as few cities have ever had in the world’s history. Also, there were always guns mounted on high towers waiting for the coming of the Zeppelin raid.
“Then one night, as luck would have it,” Barbara insisted, “the raid came just in the nick of time. For how could the Germans have dreamed that we were leaving for southern France the next morning?”
Nevertheless, the luggage of the Red Cross girls was actually packed and in spite of war times the girls had added to the amount. Moreover, they were due to take the ten o’clock train next day at the Gare de Lyons. So because they were weary, a little sorry at having to leave Paris, and yet curious of the new adventures ahead, the four girls retired early.
In one way Paris has conspicuously changed since the outbreak of the war.[56] She has become an early-to-bed city and except on special occasions her cafés are all closed after dark.
So Dick Thornton, although not leaving with the girls the next day, found little to amuse him on the same evening. He had said good-night soon after dinner and then gone for a long walk. For in truth he did not wish to have an intimate farewell talk with his sister or any one of her friends.
The hazards of war had used Dick pretty severely. He had not come to Europe to act as a soldier; nevertheless, in a tragically short time, before he had even begun to be fairly useful, he had paid a cruel penalty. Dick believed that he would never again be able to use his right arm.
He did not intend, however, to allow this to make him morose or disagreeable and so seldom spoke of it. But now and then he used to desert his four feminine companions and walking through the semi-darkened streets of Paris try to work out a solution for his future.
So by chance it was Dick who gave the alarm to the household on the night of Paris’ long-anticipated Zeppelin raid.
[57]
He had just come home and was standing idly before the door waiting to awaken the concierge who presides over the destinies of all Parisian apartment houses. A beautiful night, the sky was thickly studded with stars, although there was no moon.
Suddenly Dick heard a tremendous explosion. Naturally his first thought was a bomb and then he smiled at himself. In war times every noise suggested a bomb. This noise may have been nothing but an unusually loud automobile tire explosion. However, Dick was not particularly convinced by his own suggestion. He remained quiet for another moment with all his senses acute. The streets in his neighborhood had been well-nigh deserted at the moment of the shock. If it were nothing they would still continue so. A brief time only was necessary for finding out. For an instant later windows were thrown open and every variety of heads thrust forth with eyes upturned toward the sky.
Then a fire engine rattled by and afar off a bugle call sounded.
[58]
That moment Dick pounded at the closed door of their house, but the concierge was already awake and let him in at once. Then with a few bounds he cleared the steps and stood knocking at his sister’s bedroom door.
“Something startling is happening, I don’t know exactly what,” he announced hurriedly. “But you girls had best get on some clothes and come out. I am going up on the roof. If it is a Zeppelin raid the city officials have warned people to go down to the cellars. I’ll let you know in half a minute.”
But in half a minute Dick did not return. There seemed to be no danger for the present at least, and besides he had a masculine contempt for the length of time it takes girls to put on their clothes, even in times of emergency. Moreover, he kept staring up at the heavens too entranced by the spectacle to think of danger.
Five Zeppelins were passing over Paris, the projectiles which they dropped in passing leaving long trails of light behind them.
[59]
Soon after a small voice spoke at Dick’s elbow: “It’s wonderful, isn’t it? When I was a little girl I could never have believed that I should see real fireworks like these.”
Without glancing around Dick naturally recognized the voice. It always amused him to hear Barbara talk of the days when she was little, as she appeared so far from anything else even now.
“You had better go downstairs, little girl, with the other girls;” he commanded. “Yes, it is a wonderful spectacle, but this is no place for you.”
Then hearing her laugh lightly, he did turn around. Assuredly Barbara could not go down to the other girls, since they were assembled on the roof with her, and not only the girls but a third of the people in the pension. They were all talking at once in French fashion.
Dick felt rather helpless.
“I thought I told you to go to the cellar,” he protested. But Barbara paid not the slightest attention to him and the other girls were out of hearing.
[60]
She was clutching his left arm excitedly.
Now they could see the aeroplanes that had come out for the defense of Paris circling overhead and firing upon the Zeppelins and farther off in the distance the thunder of cannon could be heard.
“Paris is being wonderfully good to us, isn’t she?” Barbara whispered. “We keep seeing more and more amazing things.”
Dick scoffed. “I thought you pretended to be a coward, Barbara, though it is difficult for me to think of you as one.”
And to this the girl made no answer except, “I don’t believe any one in Paris is seriously frightened. A raid is not the terrible thing everybody feared, at least not one like this.”
But Dick was not so readily convinced. There was a chance that these first air raiders were but scouts of the great army of German Zeppelins that London and Paris have both been dreading since the outbreak of the war.
Moreover, Dick was not alone in this idea. He could see now that the tops of all the large houses and hotels in the[61] neighborhood, as far as one could discern, were thronged with as curious a crowd as his own. And from the streets below chatter and laughter and now and then cries of terror or admiration floated upward.
Of course, there were many persons in Paris that night wiser or at least more prudent than the four American Red Cross girls, and there were a number of places where proper precautions were taken. However, no one thought of going to bed again.
By and by the three other girls joined Barbara and Dick. But now there was nothing more to be seen save the stars in the sky which were too eternal to be appreciated. So when the noise of the cannonading had at last died away, Madame Raffet, who had charge of the pension, asked her guests to come down into the drawing room for coffee.
The girls were cold and dismal now that the excitement had passed and were glad enough of the invitation. Dick Thornton, however, resolutely declined to join them. He was still not in the mood for cheerful[62] society, although he did not offer this excuse. He merely said that he always had wished to see the dawn steal over Paris and here was the opportunity of a lifetime, since the dawn must break now in a short while.
It may be that Barbara Meade guessed something of her friend’s humor, for she went quietly away with the other girls, not joining her protests with theirs over Dick’s unusual obstinacy.
An hour and a half passed, perhaps longer. Dick had found a seat on a stone ledge between two tall chimney stacks. It was a long, cold bench and he was growing rather tired of his bargain. Still, there was a grayness over things now and daylight must soon follow. Yet he was sorry he had not gone downstairs with the others; it would have been an easy enough business to have returned to his perch later and coffee would undoubtedly have been a boon.
He was kicking his feet rather more like a disconsolate small boy, who had been sent upstairs to his room alone for punishment,[63] than like a romantic youth about to pay tribute to his Mistress Paris, when Barbara Meade joined him for the second time that evening.
However, this time he saw her coming and her welcome was far more enthusiastic.
The girl had put on her long gray-blue nursing coat, but wore a ridiculous little blue silk cap pulled down over her curls. Moreover, Dick Thornton had to rush forward to meet her to keep her from tripping, since she was dragging his neglected overcoat with her and also trying to carry a thick mug of coffee.
Dick snatched at the mug none too politely.
“I say, you are a trump!” he remarked with such fervor, however, that any girl would have forgiven him.
Then Barbara sat down beside him on the stone ledge and after seeing that he had put on the overcoat, watched him drink the coffee. She even added two rolls for his refreshment from the depth of her pocket.
“I made the coffee for you myself. I[64] think it rather good of me,” she remarked placidly. “The other girls are lying down. But I had a fancy to see the dawn over Paris myself and I thought if I brought you a present you would not send me away.”
Dick smiled, for the dawn had broken when Barbara came. From their tall roof they had a marvelous view of the city and the long line of beautiful bridges crossing the Seine. And there, not far away, looking as if she were built half upon the water and half upon land, the Church of Notre Dame.
A sudden glory of red and gold bathed its two perfect towers and the cross above. Slipping down between the grinning gargoyles along its sides it dipped into the river below. In another direction Montmartre was shimmering like a rainbow, steeped in the colors and the glories of romance.
Barbara shivered over the strange beauty after the excitement of the night before. And although Dick was there and they were good friends, she wished that one of the girls had also been her companion. It[65] was a time when she would have liked to put her hand inside a friend’s just for the sense of warm human companionship.
But Dick was not at the moment looking or thinking of her. It was hardly to be wondered at, the girl thought with the old grace of a smile at herself. There were so many better things to see. Yet it gave her the chance for a farewell study of him. They were to part now in a short time, for how long neither of them knew.
The next instant Barbara regretted her decision. For how wretchedly Dick Thornton was looking! Could any one believe that only a little over a year had passed since their first meeting on the March night when she had arrived so unceremoniously at his father’s house. Certainly Dick had been more than kind to her even then.
A moment later when Dick did chance to glance toward his companion she was crying hard but silently.
Once or twice before Dick had been surprised at Barbara Meade’s unexpected tears, but now he understood them at once.
[66]
He offered her the comfort she had wished a little while before. Gently he took her hand inside his left one.
“I know you are thinking of me, Barbara, and this tiresome old arm of mine. It is tremendously kind of you,” he protested. “But I want you to promise me not to worry and to keep Mill from fretting if you can. I hate you girls to go off to work again without me, but I’ve made up my mind to stay around Paris for a few months. I’m rather glad to have this chance to explain things to you. Of course, you know that when that shell shattered my shoulder it seemed to paralyze my arm. Well, I have not given up hope that something may yet be done for it. So as soon as I can get hold of one of the big surgeons here in Paris I want him to have a try at me. They are fairly busy these days with people who are of more account, but if I hang around long enough some one will find time to look after me. You know I have never told, nor let Mildred tell mother and father just how serious things are with me. But if[67] nothing can be done I’ve made up my mind to go home and find out what a one-armed man can do to be useful. He isn’t much good over here at present. You see, Barbara, I have not yet forgotten your New York lectures on the duty and beauty of usefulness.”
Dick said this in a laughing voice, with no intention of attempting the heroic, so Barbara did her best to answer in the same spirit.
Nevertheless, she had never gotten over her sense of responsibility and might always continue to feel it.
“Oh, I am sure something can be done,” she answered, forcing herself to speak bravely. “But in any case you will come and say good-by to Mill and the rest of us before you sail, won’t you?” she concluded.
Dick nodded, but by this time they had both gotten up and were walking across the roof top side by side.
“I say, Barbara,” Dick added shyly just at the moment of parting, “however things turn out, promise me you won’t take it[68] too seriously. Somehow I can’t say things as well as other fellows, but I’m not sorry I came over, in spite of this plagued arm of mine. I don’t know why exactly, but this war business makes a man of one. Then when one thinks of what other fellows are having to give up—oh well, I read a poem by an Englishman who was killed the other day. Would you mind my reciting the last lines to you?”
Then taking the girl’s consent for granted, Dick went on in a grave young voice that had much of the beauty which Barbara remembered in his song the year before.
“His name was Rupert Brooke and he wrote of the men who were going to die as he did:
“These laid the world away; poured out the red
Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be
Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene
That men call age; and those who would have been
Their sons, they gave—their immortality.”