"A brown puddle of coffee was spreading over the white oilcloth. The girl from home sopped it up with her dish towel. She brushed away messy fragments of food and bread crumbs. Again there were few vacant places for American soldiers on the benches at the long table in the canteen at the Gare St. Lazare. "The canteen, one of a circuit of thirteen maintained by the Red Cross in Paris, had formerly been the corner of a baggage room in one of the most important Paris terminals. The concrete floor bruised her feet. She was as conscious of them as _Alice in Wonderland_ who discovered her own directly beneath her chin after she nibbled the magic toadstool. The girl was tired, but she smiled. "It was really a smile within a smile. There was one on her lips which seemed to sparkle and glance, waking responsive smiles on the faces of the men. At once the gob who was born down in Virginia and had trained at Norfolk, decided that she was from his own South. The six-foot doughboy from California knew that she came from some small town in the Sierras. To each of the men she suddenly represented home. "That smile stays in place each day until she reaches her room in a pension across the Seine on the Rue Beaux Arts. There, closing the door upon the world with its constant pageant of uniformed men who seem forever hungry and thirsty, she lets her smile fade away for the first time that day. "The smile within is tucked away in her heart with the memory of agonizing moments aboard an ocean liner when she felt her exalted desire for service ebbing away because she feared she would not be needed. Needed! Now she wonders who else could have managed so tactfully the boy who had been at sea for one year and discovered that he had forgotten how to talk to an American woman. His diffidence was undermined with another dish of rice pudding and an extra doughnut. He became a regular boarder at the canteen where breakfast costs nine cents and any other man's size meal may be had for thirteen cents. His leave ended in a half day of excited shopping for which his younger sister will always be grateful. "The girl from home had been one of those solemn creatures who was called to the Overseas Club in New York for service abroad. She was one of hundreds who had clinched their own faith in their ideals by pledging such service. It had been a wrench, saying good-bye at the station in the Middle West. There were no boys in the family, and her father had made a funny little joke which betrayed his pride about 'hanging out a service flag now.' Armed with interminable lists which called for supplies for twelve months, she bought her equipment. All the time she was saying to herself: "'I am ready to give all of my youth and my strength to the cause and to hasten victory.'