“Yes! The war of the upper classes, the officers, the idle people who carry swords!” “Ah!” “Certainly it is! You are going to make us kill ourselves to the last man, so that you can be masters afterwards.” “All the same, mademoiselle, you will keep your father and brothers. Their opinions compel them....” “Hey? What’s that you say?” interrupted the mutineer. “They have ordered their new boots, and papa refuses to guard the railroad. He wants to go to the front. But it is not for you they fight, ladies and gentlemen, but for France!” God forgive me, I found nothing to reply. A few minutes later, having descended several steps, she became timid and correct, and leaned against the banister. “You are going far away, sir.... The sea is terrible!” “It is my profession.” “One can be drowned.” “One can swim.” “Would you be happy? Should you like it? Anyway, forget what I said. Can one write to naval officers?” “They may even answer.” “Indeed?” “Yes.” Her sharp heels rang on the staircase. And every month since she has written two pages to her patron, the officer, the bourgeois. * * * * * “My father is happy,” says the letter in the last mail. “They have put him fifty kilometers nearer the Boches. My young brother has had his foot frozen, the other has lost his left arm, and won the _Croix de Guerre_. You see that all my people are well. They are bored in the trenches. They would like very much to get at the Germans. The officers say that that will come later. One believes them, doesn’t one, because they get themselves killed first, and do not risk their men’s lives? You are very fortunate to be an officer, and if in the navy they are like what they are in the army, I am well content with France which....” Thus writes my rebel of former days; sincere to-day as then, she is the happier now for hating nobody. “My dear husband,” says the perfumed letter, “received a splinter of shell in his right shoulder. In fifteen days he can return to the front. I am obliged to feed him, for he has difficulty in using his other hand; he lets things drop into his beard, which is not nice. I should like to keep him, but I do not dare tell him so. I am not a heroic woman, and I am not afraid to acknowledge the fact to you. However, when I see these poor little soldiers in my hospital, who smile so sweetly in spite of their suffering, I understand that I have no right to keep my husband. If you could see these dear wounded men! They thank you so bashfully. They find simple words to express great things, and they look at their nurses with such kind eyes, and so respectfully that I feel unworthy to dress their wounds....” Thus my idle lady. I am sure she has quite forgotten her old bitterness. I do not care to remind her of it.