"Oh, father stopped for him on the way up. He said until the end of the year was too long to wait, and he'd bring him back in two days. The headmaster didn't want to let him go, but father generally has his way. And it began to rain, but we didn't mind."
"And when you saw Joffre you wept?"
"Not exactly. There was a young fellow standing in the crowd quietly, with his arm in a sling. He was hardly more than a boy, and he looked sick. He had beautiful sombre eyes, with a look in them that—well, as if he had seen so much, and as if he did not quite understand. You should have seen his eyes. Like a wild thing. And when Joffre came, I thought he would go crazy. He waved his cap frantically, and the tears just streamed out of his eyes, and you should have heard him. Joffre heard, and saw, and he leaned out of the car, and he saluted that boy. My! That boy was proud. You can guess—that was when I cried. And we got him into the car with us. He didn't look able to go far. He was a soldier who had been with the Canadians over there, a Frenchman by birth. He told us a little about it, but he didn't seem to want to talk. He had been wounded, and sick, and had come back over here on sick leave or something of the kind. And he and Lejeune, the chauffeur, got to talking, and we took him home. He wants to get back into the fighting as soon as he can. And when he got out, Lejeune got out too. He was going to enlist."
"Left you on the spot?"
Eve laughed. "Yes," she said, "but I rather guess that it wasn't unexpected. I shouldn't be surprised if that was what father took him for. At any rate, father just smiled, and gave them both his blessing, and told Lejeune to come back when the war was over. And he gave him some money, and said that they could divide it between them."
"How much, I wonder?"
"I don't know how much, but a good deal, considerably more than a hundred dollars. He had a note already written, too, a 'character,' as the maids call it, saying that he was a good chauffeur. Then Tom—he had been getting uneasy—said that he wanted to be in on this too, but he wasn't so well prepared as father. And he gave them all he had with him, except a dollar or two. That was too much for the French boy, and he waved his cap again, and cried, 'Vive la France! Vive l'Amérique!' with the tears streaming down his face again. And I cried some more, and so did Cecily. Oh, I had a lovely time, Adam."
Eve was laughing again, and pressing closer to me. "That French boy was a machinist before he went to the war, and Lejeune is a good chauffeur, and I shouldn't wonder if they'd both get into driving when they get over there. I hope so. But he wasn't thinking of that, the French boy. He is ready to go back, when his time comes, and meet his fate with a high heart. With a high heart, Adam. Oh," she cried, "don't you think it is stirring—just a little—to the imagination? Don't you?" And she gave me a little shake.
I nodded soberly, and hugged Pukkie closer. "I rejoice, Eve," I said irrelevantly, "that Pukkie is not yet eleven."
Eve did not reply directly. Her eyes filled with tears, and she drew Pukkie around between us. "I suppose it is selfish," she said. "If a French machinist goes—only about eight or nine years older than Pukkie—and can stir me all up with the idea of it—why—"