“I don’t know about the beautiful,” said Bert, and Ken registered a thought that Bert would not be likely to notice domestic beauties, “but there was something fine about it. I liked it.... That old grandmother was bully. They were all so doggone respectful.... And there was a young lieutenant, a grandson—had his face shot away. Nothing left but his mouth and one eye. Wore a big triangular patch over his face. He must have been quite a fellow, though. Had the Croix de Guerre and the Legion of Honor and the Médaille Militaire. Just been married, too—to a mighty nice little girl—one of these home bodies, looked as though. And, by Jove! she acted like she was a heap in love with him. It sort of got me—especially when everybody in the room took the opportunity at some time during the evening to tell me that she never met him until after he was mutilated.... I don’t believe that sort of girl would pick up with a fellow, somehow. And I know mighty well her mother and grandmother never would have. I guess there are all kinds of French people, just the same as there are Americans....”
“Of course,” said Ken, out of his abysmal ignorance. Then, defensively, “Maybe these aristocrats are different from the girls we know, but, I don’t care how they live or how straitlaced they are, they’re no better than Andree.... Andree’s good.”
“Sure,” said Bert, “and you’re dotty.... Meet you at eleven.”
Ken wrote a few letters home, one to his mother in which he went rather to descriptions and very little to personal matters. He spoke little of France and the French, but rather made it appear that he was living in a Paris inhabited exclusively by American soldiers who were all so busy with the war that they had no time to do anything else but work and sleep. He did mention seeing Notre Dame ... which was a church, and of undoubted historic interest. It was a very circumspect letter, and not at all confidential.... But it is an undoubted fact that mothers and fathers have to earn by their conduct toward their children those confidences which they seem to fancy are theirs by right. Ken could have told his father anything—everything. But his mother—somehow it was difficult for him to compel himself to make the most trivial disclosure to her. Her attitude toward him and toward the world had created that difficulty. The young are naturally confidential....
Then he went to meet Andree.
One of the delights of Ken’s acquaintance with Andree was that each meeting with her seemed a fresh adventure; there was a sameness about these meetings. Andree always appeared just so, and conducted herself just so. He could foretell with exactitude what her every movement and gesture and word would be when she did appear. But somehow, probably unconsciously, she was able to impart to every rendezvous a freshness, an air of mystery, something elusive and elfin that made them, no matter how often repeated, always alluring, exciting, delightful. Her sudden appearances out of a life of which he knew nothing and her disappearances back into that life lifted this affair above the level of all other affairs, imparting to it something of the occult, giving play to the imagination.... Ken cherished this illusion and, therefore, though often tempted, he asked no questions. Even now he did not know her name—only Andree.
Presently she appeared, just as he knew she would appear, walking very erect, with little steps that seemed almost stiff, her eyes cast downward or staring straight before her and seeming to see nothing whatever. He knew that she would approach within reach of his hand before she gave sign of recognition, and then she would regard him with grave query as if to ascertain if it were really he, and if, as she feared, she was not welcome. And then she would smile timidly, without taking her eyes from his, and shake hands with quaint formality, and ask how he carried himself. If she had changed any particular of it he would have been alarmed, would have felt a sense of loss.
“Bert and Madeleine will meet us here,” he said.
“It is well.” She smiled and nodded. “You have been at the front?”
“Yes.”