They walked the best part of a block before she spoke. “It is ver’ _nécessaire_ for me to enter into the Conservatoire.... Oh, ver’ _nécessaire_.... I mus’ earn money. I have no money. I mus’ earn it for myself, because there is no one to earn it for me.... You do not onderstan’.... Sometime, before the war, yo’ng girls say they do not need to earn money, because they marry. All will be wives and the husbands they will earn.... Now it ees not so—_non_—it ees differen’.... You onderstan’? Many, many yo’ng girl mus’ learn to earn money, and because they will always be alone.... There can be no one....” “It does mean a lot to you, doesn’t it? I’ll be mighty happy if I can help.” She was silent again for a time and then said, suddenly, as if thinking aloud, “I theenk I can enter into the _Conservatoire_ if I want to....” “Eh?” “It was not anything.” He scarcely heard her; his mind was not on what she said, for he was thinking to himself, “I must tell her.... I must tell her now,” and was nerving himself up to make the announcement of his departure. “Andree,” he said, and stopped. “Yes?” “Do you love me?” he said, procrastinating. It was not what he had intended to say. “Yes.” She spoke very sweetly. “And you?” The question sounded so charming from her lips, the tone and the manner of it were rare and lovely; they seemed to say, “I know you love me, but it is sweet—very sweet—to hear you say so.” The street was dark and he drew her close to him, and so they walked, his arm about her waist, she responding to his touch so deliciously. “I love you—I do love you,” he said. “It is well.... I am ver’ happy.” “But, Andree—” “Yes?” “I—I’ve got to go away.... Only for a day or two,” he hastened to say. “It’s just a little trip.” “When?” “Now—to-night.” “_To-night?_” Her tone was so strange, so startled, so shocked. “_To-night?_” “Orders,” he said. “Nothing could take me away from you but orders.” She had drawn away from him, and was striving to peer into his face, but the darkness prevented. She was striving to read from his eyes if he were telling the truth. She had feared his going—this young man from strange America. The possibility of his going had become a nightmare to her—always present in the profound recesses of her thoughts. “Where?” she asked. “To the front.” “O-oh!...” It was not an exclamation, it was a suppressed cry. It was one of the things she had feared, that this young soldier would be sent from her to the hell of battle, and that he would not return, as the brothers and the husbands and the sweethearts of her acquaintances had gone—to be swallowed up and to be seen no more on earth.... He was going.... The thing was going to happen to her.... Her man—the man she loved—was going to become a sacrifice as those millions of other men had become sacrifices.