CHAPTER XXXI

As the General strode back across the hall, Madame came down the stairs.

"May I come in?" she asked. "Is the conference over?"

He looked up at her seriously.

"I have just bade them good-bye, Cecile; we have had an anxious morning, but please God, it will result in victory for France."

Madame smiled.

"Is that all I am to hear, my husband?"

"A soldier's wife must not ask," he said, "what there is for her to know is told without a question."

"And I am content that you know best," she said, looking at him tenderly.

He put his hands on her shoulders. For a moment they stood looking into each other's eyes.

"I am waiting to say good-bye to Gerome," she said at last.

Her voice was calm and even, her clear eyes looked into his bravely, unflinchingly. These two had lived together so long that the spoken word was unnecessary to convey their thoughts to one another. The absence of demonstration in sorrow is often its best indication of sincerity, and although her proud face gave no sign, he knew the struggle that was going on in her breast. He knew that she lived only for this son of theirs, a son who was worthy of the pride they felt in him. And to-day, he was to march away to take his place in that Armageddon from which so few returned, or returned in such a manner as to mock the splendid manhood that had been theirs.

"Cecile," he said, "I understand! We can only hope! He is one of the army, and the army is France! If he does not come back to us, then he will have died the noblest death that can come to a man! He will have given his life for his country!"

She smiled bravely.

"And when their country has needed them," she said, "the women of France have never been called upon in vain."

Her husband looked at her, the fine lift of her stately head, the calm poise of her clear eyes.

"You are the spirit of France itself," he said; "women like you have been the inspiration in every crisis in our history!"

Madame sighed. This beautiful life of theirs, these years of happiness together, how could she even think of so bitter an ending as war must bring. But he must not be disappointed in her. She must be what he thought her, the spirit of France itself.

"I am so concerned about Marie," she said, after a moment; "do you think the government will take any action because of her being an alien?"

"No, no," he said, "they were married before the war. She has lived in Paris now over a year, there is no cause for anxiety."

The girl's sad face was still vividly in her mother-in-law's memory.

"Still," she said, "I'm glad Gerome brought her here, it lessens the chance of her being embarrassed by prying officials."

"My dear," he said, "we won't criticise the government for taking every precaution at a time like this."

Madame looked up the stairs toward Marie's room. With a woman's intuition, she had sensed something of the struggle going on in the girl's soul; with the eyes of a mother she had laid the cause at one door.

"There must be many marriages such as this," she said, "and how sad it is for all concerned, for although their loyalty may be unquestioned, in the minds of some there may lurk a doubt."

"And yet," he said, "if there had been more of these international marriages, this war might never have occurred!"

She smiled faintly. She was accustomed to these Utopian theories. She had heard him work out to his own satisfaction all the problems of humanity, wondering at a blundering world for not finding the solutions that were so simple to him, but this was a new subject.

"Universal peace would be the most precious gift God could bestow on his people," she said. "How will these international marriages help to bring it about? War not only tears husband and wife apart by death, but by allegiance to different causes. How could that be overcome?"

He looked at her seriously.

"I believe that our sons and daughters should seek their proper mates from environments far removed from one another. In that way, the best of civilization would be evenly distributed. The best blood, the best intellect, the best culture. Then no one country could believe itself to have a monopoly. There would be one universal language, mutual interest, new blood would be infused into decadent veins, new vigor, strength, mental and physical. Political boundaries would be meaningless, political differences would be impossible, and the sword would be sheathed forever!"

"This is a strange philosophy for a soldier," she said smilingly, "one whose profession is arms!"

"The soldier is the nation's surgeon," he said; "he tries to cut away the evils that menace its existence, and he most of all is glad when his work is finished. He seldom feels the hatred and rancor that is so common to the civilian who fights his battles over a dinner table."

Together they walked to the window. Up and down the drive the tire marks of the recent motors crossed and recrossed. Low down on the distant horizon hung the dark form of an observation balloon. And dull, reverberating, incessant, muttered the guns.

With a sigh the General turned from the window.

"Come, my dear," he said, "there are some important papers to go over before I leave!"