There was a woman near me, her mourning veil thrown back, disclosing a death-like face. Her features were pinched, and her pale lips were pressed tightly together in suffering. She had been waiting surely three hours since sending in her card, and all that time she had scarcely moved. Sometimes I forgot her, and then my eyes would fall on her and I wondered how I could see anybody else in the room. In comparison to her all the others seemed fussy or melodramatic or false in some way. Suffering was condensed in her. It flowed through her body. It settled in the shadows of her face and clothed her in black. Her gloved hands pressed each other. Her eyes stared in front of her, full of pain like a hurt beast's. She sat as though carved in stone, dark against the window, the lines of her body rigid and clear-cut like a statue's. At last an aide came toward her, spruce and alert, holding a paper in his hand. She rose at his approach, leaning on the back of her chair, her body bent forward tensely. He spoke to her in a low voice, consulting the slip of paper in his hand. All at once she straightened herself, and a burning expression came into her face. One hand went to her heart, exactly as though a bullet had pierced her breast. Then she gave a sharp cry, and hurling her pocketbook across the room with all her strength, she rushed outside. Every one dodged as though the pocketbook had been aimed at him. A young second lieutenant picked it from the floor and stood twisting it in his hands, not knowing what to do with it. People looked uneasy and ashamed as though a door had been suddenly opened on a terrible secret thing that was customarily locked up in a closet. But the uncomfortable feeling soon passed, and they began to talk about the strange woman and to gossip and play and amuse themselves with her sorrow. A crowd collected about the aide, who grew more and more voluble and important each time he repeated his explanation of the incident. Shortly afterward, Mr. Douglas and I were admitted to the Chief of Staff. The walls of his office were covered with large maps, with tiny flags marking the battlefronts, and he sat at a large table occupying the center of the room. When we entered, he rose and bowed, and after waving me to a chair, reseated himself. He was rather like a university professor, courteous, with a slightly ironical twist to his very red lips. His pale face was narrow and long, with a pointed black beard, and a forehead broad and high and white. While he listened or talked, he nervously drew arabesques on a pad of paper on the table. "I have your petition, but since I have just been appointed here, I am not very familiar with routine matters." Here he smiled slightly. "Yours is a routine matter, I should say. How long have you waited for an answer--four months? We'll see what can be done. I have sent to the files and I should have a report in a few minutes."