That was not a pleasant walk for Grace Harlowe Gray, though it was an interesting one to her. The sidewalks were lined with spectators, some stolid and sullen, others quite the opposite. The latter were in the majority and the American girl frequently was jeered at and poked at with fingers. A woman slapped her, but, though Grace’s face burned, she did no more than look at the woman calmly, unemotionally. Several times she heard the word “spy” hurled at her in German and smiled to herself. It was an interesting study in psychology to Grace Harlowe, even if she were the object of the demonstration.
“Isn’t she pretty?” demanded a male voice in German.
Grace flashed a look in that direction to see who had uttered the words. She saw a German officer and an attractive-looking young woman backed up against a store front.
“Pretty? How can you say that of an American?” demanded the young woman. “She is as hideous and as ugly as no doubt her soul is black.”
“You are a true German, Fraulein,” exclaimed the German officer enthusiastically.
Grace grinned, though the characterization hurt her more than she cared to admit to herself. With every step after that she expected to encounter violence, but it was not until she neared the bridge that she did. Some one threw a stone. It was a small stone, but the thrower, as Grace concluded later when thinking over the occurrence, must have been a member of a Hun bomb squad. It hit and knocked the Overton girl down.
Grace got up dizzily. Blood was trickling down her cheek. Her escort appeared to be wholly indifferent to her plight, and did not even rebuke the one who threw the stone. Fortunately for Grace it was a small stone, else she would not have gotten up quite so readily.
“This is a sample of Hun ‘kultur,’ I presume?” she said in German, addressing her conductor.
The orderly glanced at her inquiringly.
“Sprechen Sie Deutsch?” he demanded.