No; Jeanne could not accept the theory that we were waging war for the ultimate chastening and beatification of Germany. She preferred Doggie’s reason for fighting. For his soul. There was something which she could grip. And having gripped it, it was something around which her imagination could weave a web of noble fancy. After all, when she came to think of it, every one of the Allies must be fighting for his soul. For his soul’s sake had not her father died? Although she knew no word of German, it was obvious that the Uhlan officer had murdered him because he had refused to betray his country. And her uncle. To fight for his soul, had he not gone out with his heroic but futile sporting gun? And this pragmatical sergeant? What else had led him from his schoolroom to the battlefield? Why couldn’t he be honest about it, like Doggie?
She missed Doggie. He ought to be there, as she had often seen him unobserved, talking with his friends or going about his military duties, or playing the flageolet with the magical touch of the musician. She knew far more of Doggie than he was aware of … And at night she prayed for the little English soldier who was facing Death.
She had much time to think of him during the hours when she sat by the bedside of Aunt Morin, who talked incessantly of François-Marie who was killed on the Argonne, and Gaspard who, as a territorial, was no doubt defending Madagascar from invasion. And it was pleasant to think of him, because he was a new distraction from tragical memories. He seemed to lay the ghosts … He was different from all the Englishmen she had met. The young officers who had helped her in her flight, had very much the same charm of breeding, very much the same intonation of voice; instinctively she knew him to be of the same social caste; but they, and the officers whom she saw about the street and in the courtyard, when duty called them there, had the military air of command. And this her little English soldier had not. Of course, he was only a private, and privates are trained to obedience. She knew that perfectly well. But why was he not commanding instead of obeying? There was a reason for it. She had seen it in his eyes. She wished she had made him talk more about himself. Perhaps she had been unsympathetic and selfish. He assumed, she reflected, a certain crânerie with his fellows—and crânerie is “swagger” bereft of vulgarity—we have no word to connote its conception in a French mind—and she admired it; but her swift intuition pierced the assumption. She divined a world of hesitancies behind the Musketeer swing of the shoulders. He was so gentle, so sensitive, so quick to understand. And yet so proud. And yet again so unconfessedly dependent. Her woman’s protective instinct responded to a mute appeal.
“But, Ma’amselle Jeanne, you are wet through, you are perished with cold. What folly have you been committing?” Toinette scolded, when she returned after wishing Doggie the last “bonne chance.”
“The folly of putting my Frenchwoman’s heart (mon cœur de Française) into the hands of a brave little soldier to fight with him in the trenches.”
“Mon Dieu, ma’amselle, you had better go straight to bed, and I will bring you a bon tilleul, which will calm your nerves and produce a good perspiration.”
So Toinette put Jeanne to bed and administered the infallible infusion of lime leaves, and Jeanne was never the worse for her adventure. But the next day she wondered a little why she had undertaken it. She had a vague idea that it paid a little debt of sympathy.
An evening or two afterwards Jeanne was sewing in the kitchen when Toinette, sitting in the arm-chair by the extinct fire, fished out of her pocket the little olive-wood box with the pansies and forget-me-nots on the lid, and took a long pinch of snuff. She did it with somewhat of an air which caused Jeanne to smile.
“Dites donc, Toinette, you are insupportable with your snuff-box. One would say a marquise of the old school.”
“Ah, Ma’amselle Jeanne,” said the old woman, “you must not laugh at me. I was just thinking that, if anything happened to the petit monsieur, I couldn’t have the heart to go on putting his snuff up my old nose.”