"Bah! You are chagrined, my friend, because a handsome woman has made you a little drama. Think no more of it! I have forgotten, for my part." He added, as they got out at the Aldebaran: "I propose to detain you but a little while, mon ami. When we have completed arrangements for the start to-morrow, you will be free to return and make your peace with Mademoiselle."
"Thank you, sir. She was rattled at my telling her so suddenly about my Commission," said Sherbrand, still beclouded. "Women are all like that, I suppose?"
"Except in France," said the agreeable voice of Raymond, "where the love of Country is stronger in our women than the love of lover or even of child. It was so before 1870. They have remembered through the centuries, as their sisters of Britain have not. They—the women of England are patriotic—oh yes! but patriotism is not yet a religion to them. It will cost millions of lives, and of blood an ocean to kindle that flame within their souls. Then, they also will hold the bayonet to the grindstone with their soft white hands and say: 'Become sharp, to drink the blood of Germans!' And they will mend the soldier's ragged breeches and clean the soldier's dirty rifle, and when they do they will not be less womanly. No, by my faith! nor less beloved by men. Try one of these. You will not find them too bad."
He offered Sherbrand a cigarette and took a light from him as they stood under the Aldebaran's tall Corinthian portico.
"One should always be accurate. When I told you that in France there lived no woman who was not patriotic, I was in error. Such a woman existed since three or four days."
He blew out a puff of smoke and watched its mounting spiral. Then he resumed:
"She was very young, very pretty, the bride of a month, and passionately enamoured. When her husband received orders to proceed with his Regiment of Chasseurs to the Belgian Front, she made him a scene of desperation. She would do this and that mad thing if he did not take her. Then she became calmer. She had exacted a promise from her doting cavalryman. She should visit him at the Front at a suitable opportunity. She chose her own moment, my faith!—and what a moment! She appeared in her husband's quarters in the French cavalry camp near Antoineville when the Germans were attacking Dinant. When the Cavalry Division of the Prussian Guards, and the Cavalry of their First Division, with some infantry battalions and machine-gun companies crossed the Meuse, and we were to attack, she was lying in his arms, the little idiot! He told her to go and she would not. Then he entreated her—a fatal error that!"
The cigarette was burning crookedly, forgotten between Raymond's fingers.
"Then he commanded her. She laughed, and kissed him. He gave back the kiss, drew his revolver and shot her dead. Then he ran out—in time to mount and wheel to his place as second in command of his squadron, before the Regiment swept on to the charge. Fate was kind to him. He charged like a Centaur, and died like a soldier of France the Beloved. Tell the story to Mademoiselle Saxham. She is magnificently handsome, but forgive me! not a patriot. And a woman without patriotism is—an altar without a Sacred Host and a lamp without a flame."
They went into the hotel. When the Frenchman had secured a quiet bedroom on the fourth floor, and intimated that no German was to serve him, they went together into the dining-room.