'I was in Belgium when it commenced,' she began. 'But I guess I better go back and tell it all right from the beginning,' she broke off.
'Please do,' I begged.
I did my best to speak naturally, but my voice seemed to break some spell, for her face blurred suddenly to self-consciousness.
'I—I reckon I ought to apologize for speaking to a stranger,' she stammered primly. And now her words exactly matched all the old small lines of her face. It was as if her little self, aware of something big and overwhelming that threatened to sweep her out of her depth, made a desperate clutch at conventionality.
'But I want to hear,' I protested eagerly. 'Please tell me.'
She must have seen that I was in earnest, for the little conventional self disappeared at that, and she answered simply, 'And I want to tell you—it seems like I've just got to tell you.'
It was September, 1914. We homing Americans were churning through an extraordinarily blue ocean toward New York and peace, while back there, just over our shoulders, a mad world was running red.
'It was like bein' torn all to pieces and put together again different,' she said. 'But I'll go back like I said, and start right from the beginning.'
For a moment she was silent, staring thoughtfully down at the cheap little metal cup, screwing the rings softly round and round, and drawing, as it were, inspiration from the sight of it.
'I come from Johnson's Falls,' she began at length. 'You wouldn't know where that is. It's just a little place down in West Virginia, but it's right close to the Virginia state line, and we have some mighty nice people in town. Why,' she exclaimed, 'I reckon we have some of the very best blood in the South there! But—but that isn't what I set out to tell you,' she caught herself up.