"You are going to enlist in the Legion?" "I am an Englishman, and my duty is towards my own country." "Bingo is an English dog," said Bakkus. Reaction from gladness made Elodie's heart grow cold, filled it with sudden dread. It was hard. Most of the women of France were losing their men of vile necessity. She, one of the few privileged by law to retain her man, now saw him swept away in the stream. Protest could be of no avail. When the mild Andrew set his mug of a face like that--his long smiling lips merged into each other like two slugs, and his eyes narrowed to little pin points, she knew that neither she nor any woman nor any man nor the _bon Dieu_ Himself could move him from his purpose. She could only smile rather miserably. "Isn't it a little bit mad, your idea?" "Mad? Of course he is," said Bakkus. "Much reading in military text-books has made him mad. A considerably less interesting fellow than Andrew, who, after all, has a modicum of brains, one Don Quixote, achieved immortality by proceeding along the same lunatic lines." Then Elodie flashed out. She understood nothing of the allusion, but she suspected a sneer. "If I were a man I should fight for France. If Andre thinks it is his duty to fight for England, it may be mad, but it is fine, all the same. Yesterday, in the street, I sang the Marseillaise with the rest. _'Amour sacré de la Patrie.' Eh bien!_ There are other countries besides France. Do you deny that the _amour sacré_ exists for the Englishman?" Andrew rose and gravely took Elodie's face in his delicate hands and kissed her. "I never did you the wrong, my dear, of thinking you would feel otherwise." "Neither did I, my good Elodie," said Bakkus, hurriedly opportunist. "If I have had one ambition in my life it is to sun myself in the vicarious glamour of a hero." The corsets rolled off Elodie's lap as she turned swiftly. "You really think André if he enlists in the English Army will be a hero?" "Without doubt," replied Bakkus. "I am glad," said Elodie. "You have such a habit of mocking all the world that when you are talking of serious things one doesn't know what you mean." So peace was made. In the agitated days that followed she saw that a profound patriotism underlay Bakkus's cynicism, and she relied much on his counsel. Every man that England could put into the field was a soldier fighting for France. She glowed at the patriotic idea. Andrew, to his great gladness, noted that no hint of the cry "What is to become of me?" passed her lips. She counted on his loyalty as he had counted on hers. When he informed her of the arrangement he had made with her lawyer for her support during his absence, all she said was: _"Mon cher,_ it is far too much! I can live on half. And as for the will--let us not talk of it. It makes me shiver."