She switched off the light and carefully let herself into their room, and stood a moment, huddled, breathless, against the door. The room was ghostly. The vague, snow-veiled light filtered in from the street-lamp below, making of Cameron an incoherent lump, wrapped to his eyes in the covers of their chintz-hung bed.
Her hands clasped tight, she peered at him through the shadows. He did not move. He was sleeping heavily, curiously, irregularly, his breath coming in jerky little snorts. "Oh," she wailed in her guilt heart, "he is, he is! Poor dear old Joey, drunk! And it's all, all my fault!" Swiftly she undressed in the dark. If he were to awaken, to begin saying awful maudlin things—-
Her heart pounding, she lifted the covers and crept into martyrdom on the hard edge of the bed. Cameron slept on. Once he seemed to be strangling in a bad dream, and she fought with her sense of duty to awaken him, then, miserably, let him strangle!
Gravely Nellie's tired eyes traveled from familiar shadow to shadow, to rest at last upon the dangling heap of clothes upon a chair by the window that symbolized Joe Cameron by the sane light of day. Fatigue tossed her off to sleep now and then; terror snatched her back and made her cry. In the first faint dawn she awakened with a start to find that in her sleep her tired body had slipped back to its place, and her head was resting deliciously upon her pillow. And, with the growing dawn, humor came creeping back, and try as she would, her mouth twitched. Of all people, dear old Joey! Carefully she turned her head and peered at him. His face was turned toward her, what light there was fell full upon him. Wonder took away her smile. His face was fresh, the lines of care and worry softened away as if he were at the end of a two weeks' vacation. She rested her chin on her arm, amazed, puzzled. And suddenly a grin like the sunrise spread over Joe's face, and he opened his eyes.
[signed] Alice Woods
By courtesy of "The Century."
To Those Who Go
In a sense the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers who go to France are modern crusaders. Like the valiant men of the Middle Ages who traveled far to fight in strange lands for the ideal that possessed their souls, these twentieth-century knights-errant go to defend the ideals of liberty and right and honor which are the issues of this war and which our Allies have successfully upheld for more than three years.
In that chivalric spirit General Pershing stood at the tomb of LaFayette and said, "LaFayette, we are here." As a young man only twenty years old LaFayette went out to a new land to fight for liberty, and now after nearly a century and a half the same inspiration that sent him forth is taking our young men back to fight in the land o his birth the old fight for right. The great romance of international history which the relations of France and America have afforded from the birth of this republic has entered a new chapter with the pilgrimage of our fighting men to Europe, and the inestimable service of LaFayette and his comrades to our infant republic is now to be in part repaid by the nation that France helped to establish.
But though it is a chivalric mission on which our soldiers go, they should not enter France in the attitude of saviors. It must be remembered that the United States came very late into this war, and while our troops and even more our money and material resources may have decisive weight toward victory, yet it is France, England, Italy, Russia against whom the enemy has spent his strength. Our Allies have brought the war already to its turning point, and we can at best only add completeness to their achievement. Furthermore, while we aid France and her Allies, we are defending ourselves also. We went to war because Germany was killing our citizens, was plotting against the peace and security of our nation, because her restless ambition and lust for power were choking not only Europe but the world.