"Père Clement is right," said old Bideaux. "Foch was born fifty years too late. Look here, how many of us are missing? Bernard, Duval, Chuffot, Denure, Carreaux, Henry—all the young ones gone to France. La Vielle Mamma Clement, a little more wine—to forget."
"Where is Marguerite?" Papa Clement asked his wife.
Marguerite, the young wife of Clement's son, Bernard, had been living with them since her husband returned to France to do his duty. Six months after she had come over to this country with her widowed father, Bideaux, the mechanician, the war broke out. But in these six months she had loved and married Bernard.
"Ma petite," he said to her on the second day of August, "I shall go and see my consul." And when he came back he told her, "I am going to fight the Boches."
And he went.
She went to work. Her nimble fingers and developed sense for beauty of line found employment in a dress shop. And each week she sent something to her Bernard, somewhere in France, to supplement the four sous a day the Government was paying him. Every evening, returning from work, she asked, "Any news?"
Bernard wrote frequently and well. Twice they had had bad news. Wounded at the Aisne. Wounded on the Verdun front. "But Marguerite's husband won't die before he has again kissed her and told her all about the savage Boche. Tell papa I don't want ever to see Hans Seidel at our table again. His Socialism was only masquerade. I can swear I saw him in one of the Aisne attacks. We must learn not to forget our wounds even after they have healed."
Hans Seidel had never left New York, and was still a frequent guest at Clement's, where his Alsatian French amused everybody. But after Bernard's letter he was gently told his company was no longer desired.
"Marguerite will soon be here, père."
There was a ring at the door. Mamma Clement ran to open.