MADAME GILBERT'S
CANNIBAL
MADAME GILBERT'S CANNIBAL
CHAPTER I HIS LORDSHIP
Madame Gilbert's war service ended when Austria fell out. She had been in Italy busied with those obscure intrigues for the confounding of an enemy which are excused, and dignified, as patriotic propaganda. She is satisfied that on the Italian Front she, and those who worked with her, really won the war.
The war satisfactorily won, Madame Gilbert sped home to revel in the first holiday which she had known since August, 1914. She always seems to travel with fewer restrictions and at greater speed than any except Prime Ministers and commanding Generals. In Italy she is an Italian and in France a Frenchwoman—a dazzling Italian and a very winning Frenchwoman. The police of both countries make smooth her path with their humble bodies upon which Madame is graciously pleased to trample. "I never trouble much about passports or credentials," says she, "though I carry them just as I do my .25 automatic pistol; in practice I find that I need draw my papers as rarely as I draw my gun. Most of the police and officials who have seen me once know me when I come again, and rush to my assistance." She is never grateful for service. I do not believe she knows the sentiment of gratitude. A poor man renders her aid in defiance of regulations, and maybe at the risk of his neck; she smiles upon him, and the debt is instantly discharged. He is dismissed until perchance Madame may again have occasion for his devotion. Then she reveals the royal accomplishment of never forgetting a face. Imagine a harassed, weary chef du train, before whose official unseeing eyes travellers flit like figures on a cinema screen, imagine such a one addressed by name and rank by the most beautiful and gracious of mortal women, by a woman who remembers all those little family confidences which he had poured into her sympathetic ears some twelve months before, by a woman who enquires sweetly after his good wife—using her pet name—laments that the brave son—also accurately named—is still missing beyond those impenetrable Boche lines. Will not the chef du train, cooed over thus and softly patted as one pats butter, break every French rule the most iron-bound to speed Madame upon her way? Of course he will. In war time, as in peace time, that is the royal manner of Madame Gilbert. She does not travel; she makes a progress.