"Mrs. Dwight, by all that's holy! I never expected any such luck as this!"
They shook hands warmly in the deserted square which had been a shambles during the first battle of the Marne, and in the days of Cæsar and Attila, of Napoleon the Great and Napoleon the Little. To-day it was as gray and peaceful, its houses as aloof and haughty as if war had never been. It was a false impression, however, for it was the paralysis of war it expressed, not even the normal peace of a dull provincial town.
"I've often wondered about you," said Alexina. "But I've been working with the French Army and had no way of finding out. You don't look as if you had been wounded."
"Nary scratch, and in the thick of it. My, but it's good to sec you again." He stared at her, his face flushed and his breath short. Then he asked abruptly: "When do you think we're goin' home?"
Alexina laughed merrily. "That is the first question every officer or private I have met since the Armistice has asked me. I should feel greatly flattered, but I fancy the question, being always on the top of your minds, simply babbles off."
"You bet. But—Jimminy! I'm glad to see you. You're lookin' thin, though. Been workin', too, I'll bet."
"Oh, yes—and all your old class has worked; most of them over here. Mrs. Cheever couldn't come, as her husband is in the army. But she's worked hard in California."
"I believe you. The women have come up to the scratch, no doubt of that. Although some of them! Good Lord! This isn't my usual language when speaking of them. But if some came over to do just about as they damn please, the others strike the balance, and on the whole I think more of women than I did."
"That's good news. But you mustn't blame them too severely. I mean those that really came over with a single purpose and were not proof against the forcing house of war. As for the others … well, a good many followed their men over, others came after excitement, others, as you say, to do as they pleased, with no questions asked—possibly! I shouldn't take enough interest in them to criticize them if they hadn't used the war-relief organizations, from the Red Cross down to the smallest oeuvre, as a pretext to get over, and then calmly throw us down—the oeuvres, I mean. Mine was 'done' several times. But let us be good healthy optimists such as our country loves and remind ourselves that the worthy outnumber the unworthy—and that the really bad would have gone the same way sooner or later."
"It goes. Optimism for me for ever more once I get out of France."