She had not received a second letter from Tom; but after a fortnight Mr. Cameron and Helen came unexpectedly to Clair. Helen spent two days with her while Mr. Cameron attended to some important business connected with his mission in France.
They had seen Tom lately, and reported that the boy had advanced splendidly in his work. Mr. Cameron declared proudly that his son was a born soldier.
He had already been in the trenches held by both the French and British to study their methods of defence and offence. This training all the junior, as well as senior, officers of the American expeditionary forces were having, for this was an altogether new warfare that was being waged on the shell-swept fields of France and Belgium.
Helen had arranged to remain in Paris with Jennie Stone when her father went back to the States. She expressed herself as rather horrified at some of the things she learned Ruth did for and endured from the wounded men.
“Why, they are not at all nice—some of them,” she objected with a shudder. “That great, black-whiskered man almost swore in French just now.”
“Jean?” laughed Ruth. “I presume he did. He has terrible wounds, and when they are dressed he lies with clenched hands and never utters a groan. But when a man does that, keeping subdued the natural outlet of pain through groans and tears, his heart must of necessity, Helen, become bitter. His irritation spurts forth like the rain, upon the unjust and the just—upon the guilty and innocent alike.”
“But he should consider what you are doing for him—how you step out of your life down into his——”
“Up into his, say, rather,” Ruth interrupted, flushing warmly. “It is true he of the black beard whom you are taking exception to, is a carter by trade. But next to him lies a count, and those two are brothers. Ah, these Frenchmen in this trial of their patriotism are wonderful, Helen!”
“Some of them are very dirty, unpleasant men,” sighed Helen, shaking her head.
“You must not speak that way of my children. Sometimes I feel jealous of the nurses,” said Ruth, smiling sadly, “because they can do so much more for them than I. But I can supply them with some comforts which the nurses cannot.”