“That reminds me of an English subaltern of my acquaintance who came home for a week’s leave after four continuous months in the Salient, in nineteen-fifteen—and after that experience one required a little leave! He took a room at the Savoy and left certain explicit instructions with the night clerk about the time he was to be called. In due course, at three o’clock in the morning, the telephone beside his bed rang, and our friend sat up and answered it. The voice of the clerk said: ‘Colonel’s compliments, sir, and he wants you in the firing-trench immediately.’ And the child replied: ‘Give _my_ compliments to the Colonel, and request him to go to Hell!’ Then he rolled over and slept till the afternoon. His real leave had begun! He was an artist like yourself, Blane!” As Floyd concluded this highly probable anecdote, in his usual sepulchral tone, a signal orderly came down the steps that led to the regions above, and handed a despatch to the Adjutant. Colonel Graham glanced affectionately around the table. “I hope you boys will all be in a position soon to send me such a message!” he said. “But only for a week or two, mind! Leave, not Demobilization. We haven’t finished the War yet.” The Adjutant handed him the despatch. Colonel Graham adjusted his glasses, read it, and looked up. “Yes, we have,” he said. “The rumours were true. German delegates are to meet Allied delegates at five o’clock this morning, when the Allied terms will be dictated. _Dictated_, not discussed!” He glanced at his wrist-watch. “They are being dictated at this moment. Boys, we are through! For better or worse, we are through with this War! Countermand the attack.” CHAPTER SIXTEEN GALLIA VICTRIX Lastly, two friends of ours in Paris. This is an unsatisfactory world, and our destinies are not always controlled as we could wish. But occasionally—just once or twice, maybe, in a lifetime—something happens (or is arranged for us) which so utterly transcends our own dreams and deserts as to restore our faith in an All-Wise and All-Benevolent Providence once and for all. Frances Lane had been transferred to a military hospital in Paris. Here she discharged, cheerfully and efficiently, those minor and unheroic duties which the professional healer is accustomed to depute to the amateur. One morning, during the last week in October, she was called upon in the ordinary course of business to sit by the bedside of a young officer who had just been wheeled from the operating-room, until such time as he should “come out of the ether.” And the young officer was Boone Cruttenden. Hence the foregoing appreciative reference to the workings of Providence.