On the fourth evening after his departure from Paris Captain Ware stood at the entrance to the Metro on the Place de la Concorde, just across the road from the headquarters of the American Red Cross, waiting for Andree. At his left the Obelisk arose like a great needle; he could see the Metz and Strasburg statues green with wreaths, and beyond other pieces of sculpture deemed of sufficient artistic value to protect with sandbags from the menace of German bombs. Somehow this made him feel that he had not seen Paris, that it would be necessary for him to come back again when the base of the Vendôme Column should not be concealed by sand and concrete, when the carvings on the Arc de Triomphe should not be hidden under scaffoldings and stacked sandbags, when the once despised and criticized statue at the extreme right of the face of the Opéra—now the single piece of sculpture of all that adorned the building considered worth careful protection—should be exposed to view.
There was an analogy between the hooded statues and the spirit of the city. He wanted to see both when they were as they had been before August, 1914. He wanted to see Paris when it was gay, beautiful, carefree, buoyant, volatile. How much more it would mean to see it so after having seen it as it was now.... Just across from him was a wall upon which was a poster exclaiming, “Abri, 40 places.” He wanted to see Paris without that fear riding its shoulders. He wanted to see it when every fourth or fifth shop had not its shutters down in permanence, explained by a sign which gave notice that the closing was by reason of the mobilization.... And yet it was beautiful, compellingly beautiful. Suddenly the certainty came upon him that a people whose genius could have created such a city could not be wrong. He had been told that the genius of the French was rotten at the core, its morals corrupt. He knew in this moment that it was a lie.... Such a city could not have been produced by a people who were decadent, who were not of the greatest, the worthiest of the earth....
In a moment Andree appeared, in a flimsy dress of light material this time, a dress that came just to her shoe-tops. It made her look even slenderer than he had remembered her to be, and more childish.... He waited for her to speak. She approached almost to his side before she seemed to see him, then she raised her eyes quickly, searchingly, to his face and let them fall again. But he had read anxiety and relief in that flickering glance. She shook hands, giving him a trusting little pressure of her fingers.
“You see,” he said, “I promised to come back safe. The boches didn’t get me.”
“It is ver’ well. If the boches keel you I am ver’ angry—me.”
“Have you been lonely for me?”
“Oh!...” she said, and raised her eyes again for an instant. “And you—do you think of me? But, no. You have been très-occupé—ver’ busy.... And you have seen other girls.”
She asked no questions about the front, showed no desire to hear about the affairs of war. Poor child! Like the great multitude of her sisters, she was tired of war, bored with war. In her mind was only one question about the war—when would it end?
“Bert and Madeleine are going to dine with us,” he said.
“That is well.... Monsieur Bert—is he well? And Madeleine? Have you seen her?”