“I—I guess I would. Yes, I would.”
“But here—with nothing to protect you, without even a decent lock—and not a woman within half a dozen kilometers!... It isn’t right. They hadn’t any business sending you to such a place.”
“Rubbish!... I’m safer than I would be in my own home with a policeman standing in front of the door. Why, I’ve never even thought of being nervous! Really.... I suppose it is queer.” She stopped a moment to speculate on its queerness. “If I were back home and somebody should describe this to me I couldn’t understand any girl doing it.... But I’m here—and it’s all different.... I never felt so—so safe.”
“But an army—even our army—is made up of all sorts of men.”
She laughed with sincerity. “Fiddlesticks!... What do you suppose would happen to a man who offended me? Why, Kendall”—it was the first time she had used his given name, but it appeared perfectly natural—“I’ve got a whole division to look after me.”
It was true. He knew it was true. These American boys—lonely for a familiar American face, hungry for the sound of the voice and laughter of an American woman—would idolize her. They would be her slaves. Safe?... There never had been such safety as was hers—and yet he was troubled. It was so unconventional—so off the beaten track of the ordinary movement of life. He did not quite like it.... That was his mother speaking in him. His mother would have declared such conduct to be unwomanly, to be not nice, and she would have condemned Maude Knox unheard.... Because Maude Knox was doing a thing she had never done and had never seen done by a respectable member of her sex!... Kendall realized this to be absurd.
“We’re surely in a different world,” he said, tritely.
“The Epworth Sewing Circle wouldn’t approve,” she said, with a twinkle, “but the Epworth Sewing Circle doesn’t count over here, does it?... I wonder if it will ever count again anywhere—for us who have been here?”
Kendall wondered, too. What was going to become of the home conventions when these young women, who had adventured to France to aid as they found opportunity in the winning of the war, got home? What ideas would they bring with them and disseminate? What would happen to America?... America could never be the same, for, not only would these thousands of girls return, having seen the world with opened eyes—and lived undreamable lives—but two millions of young men would be going home, too.... Each one of them would take something of France and of the war to his home—and what would come of it?...
“You’re—you’re bully!” he said, with sudden conviction. “By Jove! you’re bully!”