equal ordeal!

[164]

Madame Renane, Nona found oddly interesting.

She was plain, as many French women are, according to our American standards. She must have been nearly middle-aged and was even a little stout. Her brown hair, which was arranged simply, had some gray in it; her face was pale, her expression quiet, except for her eyes. They mirrored a hundred emotions, a hundred ideas.

She sat very quietly beside Eugenia during the first of Barbara’s entertainment, applauding with as much enthusiasm and abandon as anyone in the audience at the conclusion of each act, not all of which were of a professional character.

The chorus of American soldiers, whom Lieutenant Kelley had trained, led by Guy Ellis, sang almost every well-known American patriotic air, the French and American[165] soldiers cheering whole-heartedly, without favoritism.

[165]

Then Mollie Drew, looking very pretty in a white dress, with her red-brown hair piled high on her head and her cheeks flushed from excitement to a deep rose, sang in a small voice her two most popular Irish ballads, “Mother Machree” and “A Little Bit of Ireland.”

In the last rows of seats it was impossible to hear her; however, this did not take away from the applause she received from every listener in the room.

Mollie refused to sing an encore, but returning to bow her thanks to the audience, a soldier presented her with a great bouquet of red hothouse roses.

Not many roses were blooming these days in this neighborhood in France; besides, Mollie’s roses bore the unmistakable suggestion of Paris. But then, although Guy Ellis was only a private in the American army in France, his father was a New York millionaire and intensely proud of his son, and Mollie scarcely needed to find the card hidden inside.

[166]A quartette of French soldiers from the nearest French camp, all of them with well-trained voices, sang the Marseillaise as an introduction to Madame Renane’s appearance.

[166]

She had disappeared from the audience before they began and after the last verse, when her countrymen had gone, she came quietly out on the improvised stage.

It may be that 

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