But when the day arrived, my internationalism and cosmopolitanism, a gradual and unconscious growth, suddenly disappeared. It was a reversion to type. I became blatantly American again, and gloried in the fact that everywhere it was all Stars and Stripes. Why not? This was America's day. And ever since, despite the theoretical internationalism (or super-nationalism) I have advocated in common with my husband, I fear that practically I have been lapsing into a narrow nationalism. It is a curious phenomenon. I do not attempt to explain it.
On Thursday, April sixth, Herbert went to the American Club to lunch. Settling down to work had been hard that morning. We were feverishly awaiting the news. I was just starting lunch with the children when the telephone rang. Herbert's voice said, "Put out your flag," and then he hung up.
An hour later he came in a taxi-cab with Carroll Greenough, an American architect who lived near us. We went for his wife. Then the four of us did the Grands Boulevards, the Rue de la Paix, and the principal streets in the heart of Paris. As if by magic the American flag appeared everywhere. Paris had not waited for the poster of the Municipality, in which the President of the Municipal Counsel called upon his fellow citizens to pavoiser in honor of the new Ally. Americans though we were, we had never seen so many American flags. They expressed the hope which, though long deferred, had not made the heart sick.
We went to the Ambassadeurs for tea. The terraces were full. We watched the crowds passing up and down the Champs-Elysées. All that was lacking was the orchestra to play the Marseillaise and the Star Spangled Banner. There had been no orchestras in Paris since the beginning of the war.
But the music was in our hearts.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE VANGUARD OF THE A. E. F.
"WHAT class are yuh goin' to git?"
The voice came from a wee island of khaki in a solid mass of horizon blue. American soldiers! The first I had seen. The American army was to the French army as were these half dozen doughboys to the station full of shabby poilus. The Gare du Nord has many memories for me, happy and poignant, but this will always be the most precious. Shall I ever forget the ticket window around which our boys crowded? We had been saying "How long, O Lord, how long?" And now they were with us. I moved nearer to them.
"Why, there's classes—foist, second, and thoid—accordin' to what yuh pay—see?"
"Aw! What dya mean?"