“Poor kid!” said Kendall. It was his first direct contact with the sadness of war, and it affected him strongly. Evidences of this sort had been all about him, but this was so close!
“He was the last,” she said, finding comfort in his sympathy. “There were three brothers ...”
“It’s rotten,” Kendall said when she moved away. “Rotten. These poor women!...”
Bert made no reply. He was not the sort to voice sympathy if he felt it, nor was he the sort to be moved as Kendall was moved. He was more objective, less emotional—a trifle boisterous and swanking and not given to peering below the surface of events. It was his motto to take what came and make the best of it. On the whole, he was a careless, buoyant, thoughtless young American whose two great objects in life were to get on in the world and to have a good time. He had none of the scruples and inhibitions that made Kendall Ware more complex—not that he was unscrupulous; not that he was not an ordinarily square, able, decent sort of boy, but there did not reside in him that meticulous ethical sense that Kendall had inherited from his mother, and which had been softened and made finer by inheritances from his father.
“Four sons out of one family,” said Kendall, “and there are thousands of such cases, I suppose.” He stopped. “And every man killed is not a loss to his mother and sisters alone—but to the girl he was going to marry or had just married. After this war, Bert, where in thunder are the girls of France going to find enough husbands to go around?”
“They aren’t,” Bert said, and then he grinned. “That’s why the American Army is so popular with them. Every one of us is a possible husband, so look out, young fellow.”
“A million—maybe two million—girls with nobody to marry.... It’s hell!”
“It’s up to us to do our best to keep them from worrying about it,” said Bert, characteristically. “Come on, we’ve got to hustle.”
They loaded down a taxicab with their trunks and rolls and were driven to their new home. The concierge, naïvely proud of having two American officers as her tenants, bustled about them in genuine, motherly welcome. Kendall liked the brightness of her smile, it was so brisk, so alert; he liked her looks as a whole.... Why, she might have been his aunt, he thought. She had the look of an aunt, the sort a nephew would delight to visit.
“I have your cuisinière,” she said. “I recommend her. She will please messieurs.... But she is large, une bonne femme. She comes to-morrow and she is called Arlette. All things may be left to her, do you understand? Yes, yes, Arlette will see to all, to the marketing and the accounts—if messieurs les officiers desire. Shall you dine at home to-morrow evening?”