BARBARA had been writing a letter to Dick Thornton. She was seated on the side of her cot bed in a tiny room high up in a tower, with only one small window overlooking the courtyard below.
Although it was well into the twentieth century, this room was just such an one as might have concealed the hapless Amy Robsart in the days of Lord Leicester and Kenilworth Castle. But although Barbara had not to suffer the thought of a faithless lover, at the present moment she was feeling extremely sorry for herself.
Russia had no charms for her as it appeared to have for Mildred Thornton and Nona Davis. She disliked its bleakness, its barbarity and the strange, moody people it contained. Of course she realized that there was another side to Russian life, before the present war its society was one of the gayest in the world. But these days, when the Germans were driving the Russian army backward and even further backward behind their own frontiers, were days for work and silence, not social amusements. Moreover, Barbara knew that she could never expect to have any part in Russian social life when her mission lay among the wounded. So far she had met only other Red Cross nurses, a few physicians and the soldiers who required her care. But really Barbara was not so foolish as to resent these conditions; she was merely homesick and anxious to see Dick Thornton, and if not Dick, then Eugenia.
France had not seemed so far away from the United States and she had loved France and its brave, gay people. She had understood them and their life. Almost she had envied Eugenia her future possession of the old chateau and the little “Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door.” But then Eugenia had seemed to find France as strange and uncongenial as Barbara now considered Russia.
Even after her marriage to Captain Castaigne, Eugenia had confessed to the younger girl how she dreaded her own inability to become a Frenchwoman. She still feared that she would never be equal to the things Captain Castaigne had a right to expect of her, once the war was over. Eugenia had merely cared too much to be willing to give him up, but was too wise to expect that her problems would end with marriage.
So with this thought Barbara Meade finally removed a tear from the end of her nose. It had trickled quite comfortably out of her eyes, but as her nose was somewhat retroussé, it had hesitated there.
After all, an American marriage was best for an American girl! Barbara tried to convince herself that she should be rejoicing instead of lamenting. Certainly Dick was the most agreeable and to be desired person in the entire world. But then there was another side to this! Had he not been, perhaps she would not at this moment be missing him so terribly and at all the moments. Letters were so infrequent! Mrs. Thornton might positively refuse to allow her son to marry so insignificant a person, and Dick forget all about her!
But in the midst of this last and most harrowing thought, fortunately Nona Davis came into the room.
She looked excited, but on catching sight of her friend’s face her expression changed.
“Good heavens, Barbara!” she began. Then the next moment she walked over and tilted the other girl’s chin with her hand.