“Jeanne Barbier, and this is Monsieur, Le Capitan. My friend has no other name now, for he has forgotten his old one,” the little French girl returned gravely, yet cheerfully, for in a way she had grown too accustomed to tragedies to be overwhelmed by them. Besides, Jeanne had the gallantry of her race. Whatever she might suffer, one smiled before strangers.
“You see, he remembers nothing about himself, neither his family nor where he has come from, and I, I too was alone, until we found each other.”
Jeanne still held the French officer’s hand and he clung to her without speaking, as if she only gave him a hold on earth. Otherwise his mind wandered into what dim fancies, what tragic memories no one could guess.
But while this conversation was taking place, Barbara Thornton had crowded up beside Nona and was gazing at the little French girl through dimmed eyes. Mollie Drew was also looking out her window.
Jeanne was a typical little French girl, with wide-open dark eyes and heavy lashes, a sallow, colorless skin, bright red lips and a slender, pointed chin.
She now glanced from Nona to Barbara and her expression became puzzled and sympathetic. She did not appreciate that she and her companion were the cause of the American mademoiselle’s tears, but wondered what was making her unhappy. Jeanne believed Barbara a young girl at this first sight of her.
The truth was that Barbara had been fighting alternate stages of regret at having left home and of being glad she was coming to France, every half hour or so since her departure. But she had been more often miserable than happy, and Barbara resented unhappiness. Moreover, she had no one to confide in, since Nona, who was her only intimate friend in their Red Cross unit, had intensely disapprove of her returning to France. As nearby as she had been able to have a confidant, Barbara had made one of Mollie Drew, as the two girls were sufficiently alike in temperament to feel drawn to each other.
But as Barbara had just suffered a particularly deep wave of homesickness in the past ten minutes, the French girl with her thin, half-starved look and her smiling eyes, and the utter pathos of the man accompanying her, had unnerved her.
“Is Mademoiselle ill, is there anything I can do?” Jeanne asked with entire seriousness. In the past months she had grown accustomed to being useful to a great many people. She ran errands at a convalescent hospital, where they were keeping certain of the soldiers who had no homes and no families to whom they could be returned. These soldiers had become the permanent wards of France. It was in this hospital Jeanne had found her Captain.
In response Barbara could only shake her head helplessly. She was glad to have Nona and Mollie distracting the little girl’s attention by the gift of a box of candy, which had been a farewell present. While they did this she was studying the French officer.