“I can’t find Aunt Emilie just now, Cynthia,” he said. “But I’ve Gerry. There’s no sense in getting into that jam. We’ll go to the conservatory; and Gerry’ll come there. This way, Cynthia. Quick!”
CHAPTER IV
AT MRS. CORLISS’
She followed him about the fringes of the groups pressing into the great front room where a stringed orchestra was starting the first, glorious notes of the Marseillaise; and suddenly a man’s voice, in all the power and beauty of the opera singer and with the passion of a Frenchman singing for his people, burst out with the battle song:
Allons, enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
Contre nous de la tyrannie
L’étendard sanglant est levé....
It lifted her as nothing had ever before. “Go, children of your country; the day of glory is here! Against us the bloody standard of tyranny is raised!...”
She had sung that marvelous hymn of the French since she was a child; before she had understood it at all, the leap and lilt of the verse had thrilled her. It had become to her next an historical song of freedom; when the war started—and America was not in—the song had ceased to resound from the past. The victory of the French upon the Marne, the pursuit to the Aisne; then the stand at Verdun gave it living, vibrant voice. Still it had been a voice calling to others—a voice which Ruth might hear but to which she might not reply. But now, as it called to her: “Aux armes!... Marchons! Marchons!...” she was to march with it!
The wonder of that made her a little dizzy and set her pulse fluttering in her throat. The song was finished and she was amid the long fronds of palms, the hanging vines, and the red of winter roses in the conservatory. She looked about and discovered Hubert Lennon guiding Gerry Hull to her.