In the same mail came a letter from Anne. Only a few pitiful words,—but reading them has broken me all up:
This is not a letter, David: just a message. I am so sorry. If I could only make it easier to bear. Bless you.
Anne.
April
At last! Yesterday America declared war. It is my fight now. I shall be transferred, at once.
* * * * *
I went over to Alan’s in the afternoon and found him in a high pitch of excitement, insisting on going out to see the city. I argued with him, fruitlessly, for he would have his way. So we bundled him up, and Toinon and I helped him down the stairs, and, with him between us in the back seat of a lazy fiacre, we went forth into the delirious city. Flags everywhere, and everywhere, thank God, the Stars and Stripes! Where they came from, heaven knows: they blossomed out like dandelions after a rain, in the most unexpected places,—orthodox and home-made; flags constructed of hastily-ripped-up skirts and comforters, the stripes and stars confused: but what did it matter! I think all the crowded panoply of the boulevards did not give us half the thrill that we received at the sight of one clumsy, grotesque banner swinging above a butcher shop on the Rue des Quatre-vents, with its green-blue stripes and its wabbly white stars hastily sewn on. Alan was in uniform and I in my blue-gray, and everywhere it was:
“Bravo, les Americains!”
“Vive l’Amerique!”
We stayed out until dark: nothing could induce him to return sooner.
“Why, good Lord, Davy, this is doing me more good than all the doctors in Paris,” he exclaimed fretfully. “This is something to live for. I’ll be cured and back in a couple of months. You’ll see. You must apply for a commission for me. I know more about artillery than half their dinky West Pointers. I can start in a little light work; there’ll be a lot of instructing necessary. What do they say? Will the army be sent over here to train?”