them—Que voulez vous?—War is war—and there is no use in looking blue—Cheer up, young man!"

Then we talked of other things. She is witty and downright, and her every thought and action is kindly. I love la Duchesse—My mother was her dearest friend.

When she had stayed twenty minutes—she came over close to my chair.

"I knew you would be bitter at not being in the fight, my son," she said, patting me with her once beautiful hand, now red and hardened with work, "So I snatched the moments to come to see you. On your one leg you'll defend if the moment should come,—but it won't! And you—you wounded ones, spared—can keep the courage up. Tiens! you can at least pray, you have the time—I have not—Mais le Bon Dieu understands—."

And with that she left me, stopping to arrange her tightly curled fringe (she sticks to all old styles) at the lac mirror by the door. I felt better after she had gone—yes, it is that—God—why can't I fight!

30

III

Is some nerve being touched by the new treatment? I seem alternately to be numb and perfectly indifferent to how the war is going, and then madly interested. But I am too sensitive to leave my flat for any meals—I drive whenever one of the "fluffies" (this is what Maurice calls the widow, the divorcée and other rejoicers of men's war hearts) can take me in her motor—No one else has a motor—There is no petrol for ordinary people.

"It reminds one of Louis XV's supposed reply to his daughters"—I said to Maurice yesterday. "When they asked him to make them a good road to the Château of their dear Gouvernante, the Duchesse de la Bove—He assured them he could not, his mistresses cost him too much! So they paid for it themselves, hence the 'Chemin des Dames.'"

"What reminds you of what—?" Maurice asked, looking horribly puzzled.

"The fluffies being able to get the petrol—."

"But I don't see, the connection?"

"It was involved—the mistresses got the money which should have made the road in those days, and now—."

Maurice was annoyed with himself; he could not yet see, and no wonder, for it was involved!—but I31 am angry that the widow and the divorcée both have motors and I none!

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