Paul Planet was sailing away from New York and from the mother he adored to fight under the colors of France.
Other women—mothers, wives, sisters, sweethearts—pressed forward. They also gazed tearfully after the slowly receding steamer.
The girlish figure with the great brown eyes and firm, resolute mouth, stood motionless.
"Paul," she murmured. "He is my only child—my boy!"
Weeks passed—months.
Paul Planet's regiment was at the front. He had learned what it means to look death in the face, to live in the trenches, to see the horrors and devastation of war. He had fought and fought bravely, and experienced no regrets save one—that he must be separated from his mother.
"We have always been more like chums than mother and son," he confided to his comrades. "Since my earliest recollection until now we have never been separated."
But when he drew forth a small picture from over his heart and said it was a likeness of the mother for whose loneliness he sighed, his friends ridiculed his statement.
"Your sweetheart," they said, "or perhaps your sister. But never, never ask us to believe that the likeness is of your mother."
"She is always young—always beautiful—to me she will never grow old," declared the young soldier. But after that he did not show the picture again.