I was too tired to argue. While I stood watching her there was a
tremendous explosion. I rushed into the garden. The picket, his gun on
his shoulder, was at the gate.
"What was that?" I called out to him.
"Bridge," he replied. "The English divisions are destroying the bridges
on the Marne behind them as they cross. That means that another
division is over."
I asked him which bridge it was, but of course he did not know. While I
was standing there, trying to locate it by the smoke, an English
officer, who looked of middle age, tall, clean-cut, rode down the road
on a chestnut horse, as slight, as clean-cut, and well groomed as
himself. He rose in his stirrups to look off at the plain before he saw
me. Then he looked at me, then up at the flags flying over the
gate,--saw the Stars and Stripes,--smiled, and dismounted.
"American, I see," he said.
I told him I was.
"Live here?" said he.
I told him that I did.
"Staying on?" he asked.
I answered that it looked like it.
He looked me over a moment before he said, "Please invite me into your
garden and show me that view."
I was delighted. I opened the gate, and he strolled in and sauntered
with a long, slow stride--a long-legged stride--out on to the lawn and
right down to the hedge, and looked off.
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