She was not an old woman, but her short hair, brushed straight back over her ears like an Americanized Chinaman’s, was streaked with gray. She was sallow, pale-lipped, and with a pair of very bright black eyes—snapping eyes, indeed. She wore her clothes as carelessly as she might have worn a suit of gunnysacking on a desert island. Her eyeglasses were prominent, astride a more prominent nose. She was not uninteresting looking.
“As aggressive as a gargoyle,” Ruth thought. “And almost as homely! Yet she surely possesses brains.”
On her other hand at table Ruth found a kindly faced Red Cross officer of more than middle age, who offered her aid at a moment when a friend was appreciated. Ruth did very well with the oysters and soup; and she made out with the fish course. But when meat and vegetables and a salad came on, the girl had to be helped in preparing the food on her plate.
The black-eyed woman watched the girl of the Red Mill curiously, seeing her left arm bandaged.
“Hurt yourself?” she asked shortly, in rather a gruff tone.
“No,” said Ruth simply. “I was hurt. I did not do it myself.”
“Ah-ha!” ejaculated the strange woman. “Are you literal, or merely smart?”
“I am only exact,” Ruth told her.
“So! You did not hurt yourself? How, then?” and she glanced significantly at the girl’s bandaged arm.
“Why, do you know,” the girl of the Red Mill said, flushing a little, “there is a country called Germany, in Central Europe, and the German Kaiser and his people are attacking France and other countries. And one of the cheerful little tricks those Germans play is to send over bombing machines to bomb our hospitals. I happened to be working in a hospital they bombed.”