But he didn’t enjoy traveling alone in a foreign country. He couldn’t even ask for a match in French, much less inquire about trains. I resolved that I would be nice to that young man and see that he got safely to his destination. But when another hour went by and we still didn’t reach Y---- it occurred to me that I might not be very much of a guide. I opened my suit-case, got out a map of France, found the junction from which we had started and watched for the name on the next station. We were on the Paris express all right, but we were going to Paris instead of away from it, as I had intended. We were within a mile or two from the city of Orleans. I broke the news to the lieutenant and he turned a little pale. He simply had to get to Y---- that night, he said. He was on a special mission and had been charged to deliver his message as quickly as possible. “Even if we get there this evening,” he added, “I don’t know how I am going to get out to the camp. They don’t allow officers to sleep in the town, you know. They know I’m on the way because I sent all my luggage on ahead.” “Perhaps there is a train back very soon,” I suggested. “We’ll get off at Orleans and I will inquire.” We did, the lieutenant carrying my suit-case, and both of us hurrying as fast as we could to the ticket office. What was the next train for Y----? The next train was about to start. “Hurry, hurry, madame and monsieur. You will miss it unless you run. It is necessary to change at X,” mentioning the very junction where our unfortunate lives had been joined. We ran, without stopping to buy tickets, and scrambled breathlessly aboard the moving train. Nobody asked us for any tickets, and we actually traveled the entire distance back to X without paying the French government a single _sou_. We arrived about seven o’clock, dusk, with our final destination still forty-five miles ahead. Moreover, there was no train before midnight. The young lieutenant was very blue, but he agreed that there was no use worrying, and we might as well go up-town and get some dinner. We would have to go together, whether we liked it or not, because he couldn’t get along alone. We had a good dinner, and by the time it was finished it selfishly occurred to me that I had had about enough of that strange young man’s society. It was obvious that he had had enough of mine, because it is a little bit dangerous for an American officer to be seen in a lady’s company in France. Officers are not supposed to have women friends or relatives on that side of the ocean, and if a member of the military police were to see him carrying a woman’s suit-case through a civilian town the policeman soldier might develop a little curiosity. And what a fishy story we had to tell after all. Childish! “I think,” said I to the lieutenant, “that you can get along all right now. I am very tired and I believe I will take a room in this hotel and stay over until to-morrow.”