“Where do you live?”
He told her.
“You are an American?”
“Yes.”
“From what city?”
“Detroit.”
“I do not know it.... What is your grade?” She meant his military rank.
“Captain.”
“Are you married?”
He had rather been expecting that question, for it had been put to him by almost every girl he had talked to. Apparently it was an important question.... In a land where so many, many young men have been sacrificed to war an unmarried man is an important personage. He offers possibilities. Suppose that one million, two millions of men of marriageable age have been slaughtered, there remain at home one or two millions of young women who have no one to marry. This, in France, is not a theory, but a condition, a very real and very terrible condition. A million girls of an age for marriage and no men!...