“Ne vous donnez pas la peine.”
They made way for her deferentially, fingers to their caps, simple-hearted men, quick to feel and sure to recognize the finer metal.
“Merci, Messieurs.”
A slight inclination of her head, and she had passed down the deck to the further rail.
“I didn’t realize I was staring,” I blurted out.
“Yes—a little too openly.”
“Perhaps. It rather got me—took me back to the mobilization, and the depots—the look on the faces of the women; when you’ve seen it you can’t forget it.”
We moved to the rear and talked of desultory things, as we hung on the rail and watched the steerage. Below, a returning permissionaire, perched on a capstan, was playing on a harmonica the defiant strains of “Sambre et Meuse,” a group of cattlemen from a torpedoed ship, stretched about him, basking in the sun. The martial air quickened the blood in my veins. I saw a regiment growing out of the mists of the morning, gaunt, grim and proud, bandaged and limping, returning with their memories from the trenches. I have seen many a dress parade after battle and been thrilled; but I still can remember that first knowledge of the living returning from the dead to the rolling drums of the “Sambre et Meuse.”
“I want to love my country like that,” I said suddenly. “I want to get the same thrill when the regiment swings up the street—” I broke off. “I don’t know just how I’ll fit in. I’m afraid they won’t understand my way of looking at things. I’m rather dreading the test.”