“Better go through with it until we get to the Rhine,” advised Grace. “Something may develop that will make a change possible. If I can assist you to that end you may depend upon me to do so.”

“Thank you. May—may I tell you something, Mrs. Gray?”

Grace nodded smilingly.

“Mrs. Smythe, I fear, is going to make you a lot of trouble. She is making all sorts of threats of what she is going to do and—”

“If she doesn’t succeed any better than she has thus far, there won’t be much left of her,” interjected Miss Briggs. “How long have you been with her?”

“Only since we started for the Rhine. We were directed from headquarters to join out with the outfit to act as her assistants, Miss O’Leary and myself, but we have had about enough of it already. She is making servants of us and—”

34 “In wartime we must do many things that we don’t care to do,” suggested Grace. “We are still at war with the Huns, so we must take whatever comes to us, doing our best to keep our heads level.”

34

“Thank you, Mrs. Gray. You make me feel better. I shall do my best not to lose my temper, but really I do not see how such a woman could be chosen for our important work. I call it a rank injustice.”

“That’s what the doughboys say about their treatment,” smiled Grace. “C’est la guerre (it is war). Come in to see us whenever you can. So few of us women are out here that we should do what we can to make it pleasant for one another.”

Miss Cahill thanked her and went out, after which the two Overton girls changed their wrinkled uniforms, put on dry underwear and sat down each before a steel trench mirror to do her hair. This proceeding occupied all their time up to the mess hour, when they went out with their kits to draw their evening meal. Doughboys made way for them and insisted on their taking a place at the front of the line, but Grace smilingly declined to do anything of the sort.

Most of the men in that division had seen the welfare women and knew by that time who they35 were, for a woman at the front was too rare a sight not to attract attention. Then, too, there were among them men who either knew of their own knowledge what Grace Harlowe had accomplished or had heard the story from others. Her smash on the bridge was already known to several regiments, and when the 

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