So far there were not a great many patients, only a few of the soldiers with not very serious illnesses, so they were receiving the most devoted attention.
Then, after their survey of the hospital, Eugenia and Mildred Thornton with the four newcomers had gone up to their own rooms.
The nurses’ rooms were on the top floor of the building, which had once been a private country place, converted, largely under Eugenia’s direction, into a modern hospital.
Instead of occupying one long room like a hospital ward, it was one of Eugenia’s ideas that the Red Cross nurses required privacy and quiet after the long strain of their work. So the space had been divided into small apartments, two girls in each room. Nona and Eugenia were to have one, Barbara Thornton and Mildred Thornton, her sister-in-law, the one adjoining, while Mollie Drew and Agatha Burton were across the hall. The half dozen other nurses had the same arrangements.
At Nona’s last words, Eugenia Castaigne’s face had changed in expression slightly, but she made no reference to what the words had implied. However, Nona remembered that Mildred Thornton had already written and had also told them, that Eugenia never discussed Captain Castaigne’s disappearance and no one knew what her real feeling was, or even if she believed her husband dead.
Just now and then in this world of ours and but very rarely, one may be a witness to what may well be called the miracle of love.
Eugenia’s marriage to Captain Castaigne was one of these miracles. The surprise of his caring for her when she considered herself so unworthy, the charm of his companionship, although they had seen each other seldom, whatever it was, the fulfillment of the best in her, which comes to some women only through marriage had come to Eugenia. This she could never lose. So the somewhat narrow-minded, even if intelligent and conscientious, old maid had disappeared forever and Eugenia, or Madame Eugenie, as the French people called her, was one of the most gracious and sympathetic of women.
Moreover, she had a genius for hospital work. Whatever demands she might make upon her assistants under the pressure of necessity, she was never unjust and never spared herself, two great traits in the fine executive nature.
“Oh, I am all right and never more interested than in our American hospital, Nona. I thought I could never care for any soldiers as I have for the gallant French poilus, always gay and full of courage even to the end. But now when I think of our American boys coming on this long journey to fight for the triumph of Christ’s idea of human equality—for that is what, in its largest sense, this war against Germany means—well, perhaps I am too much of an enthusiast.
“But there I am on my present hobby and I did wish to talk just of personal matters this first night.”