"None of us Frenchwomen were allowed to stay long in hospital work. For one reason or another, we were all forbidden to go on caring for the wounded. I had the honor of being the very first to be put out of the door. "One of the officers in charge said to me one day, some four or five months after the beginning, 'Ah, madame, we shall soon be good friends now.' "The idea made me fall a step backward. 'What, monsieur? What do you mean?' "'Yes, France and Germany will soon be friends. I know with absolute certainty that Germany has offered a third of Belgium to France and that France is more than satisfied to accept and end the war.' "That is always one of the horrors up there. 'They' can tell you any news they please as 'absolute certainties.' Since we know nothing of what is going on except what they choose to tell us, we have no proofs to fling back at them; no proofs but moral ones, and 'they' find moral proofs ridiculous, of course. "I stiffened and said, 'No, monsieur. No; France will never do that, never! You cannot understand why France will never do it, nor why I am sure that she never will. But it is true.' "He laughed a little, as you would laugh at a child's impractical notions, and said: 'Oh, but France _has_ done it, madame! You will see the announcement in a few days.' "That cool assumption, my helplessness to refute him with facts, made me for an instant beside myself. I said, very hotly: 'Monsieur, if France ever does that, I will renounce my French blood. I will make myself an American.' He was still smiling indulgently at my heat. 'Oh, why, madame? Why?' "'Because if France should do that, it would be as much a disgrace for an honest person to be French as now to be German.' "He all but struck me with his whip. "And five minutes later, still in my nurse's uniform, I was standing in the street, with the door of the hospital closed behind me. I can't say I was particularly regretful, either."