Those related to her by ties of blood were fighting on both sides in the great struggle. There were two young cousins in the German ranks in Northern France whom she had known and played with when they were all three children—Paul Genau and Carl Baum. Her mother had taken her to Germany several times.
In America Belinda had few relatives now save Aunt Roberta. After her father's death she would have been quite alone had it not been for the brisk, taut little tante. Mr. Melnotte had left no great fortune to his only child; merely a comfortable income from well-placed investments, enough for her simple needs and to spare for Aunt Roberta.
Although Aunt Roberta's tendencies were strongly aristocratic, she admired Belinda's independent and practical nature. She was proud of her niece for taking up a profession. Not that she expected Belinda would remain in the work after obtaining her diploma.
"If we were in our own suffering coun-tree," she sighed frequently, "your training and experience might be of value—yes! The poor soldiers of France! Ah, they need the nurses! This great and rich United States, that owes so much to la belle France, doles out a little money and a few blankets to our poilus—like giving coals and bread to beggarwomen while France fights the battles of the world!"
Between such opinions as these of Tante Roberta and those expressed by Mrs. Blythe, the hospital matron, Belinda was puzzled. Practical as she was, her temperament was not ordinarily assertive. She was not given to forming logical opinions for herself, save on moral topics.
Aunt Roberta she knew would be delighted to return to France.
"This coun-tree, pah!" the taut little Frenchwoman would say, her gestures vigorous, "is too commercial. There is little art here, nor do the women even know how to dress. Their bonnets—pooh! They are built by the tens of thousands to sell for ten dollars each. Oh, oui, and their gowns! They are sold by the gross, all of one pattern. These Americans have no air about them—no chic."
"I am an American," stoutly maintained Belinda in answer to this.
But she sometimes wondered if, after all, she was truly American. The two hereditary natures within her seemed tugging in opposite ways. She really had but small affiliation (so she thought) with America and its citizenship.
The great milestones of history venerated by Americans of ancient lineage meant little to her. She had journeyed with college friends to Plymouth Rock and felt no thrill. The tall shaft of the Bunker Hill Monument was to her merely an observatory point. The spot where the first American blood was shed in the Revolution inspired her with no pride of race.