There was a young lieutenant in the group who finally noticed a sort of
reluctance on my part-which I evidently had not been able to conceal--to
looking off at the plain, which I own I had been surprised to find as
lovely as ever. He taxed me with it, and I confessed, upon which he
said:--
"That will pass. The day will come--Nature is so made, luckily--when
you will look off there with pride, not pain, and be glad that you saw
what may prove the turning of the tide in the noblest war ever fought
for civilization."
I wonder.
The chef-major turned to me--caught me looking in the other
direction--to the west where deserted Esbly climbed the hill.
"May I be very indiscreet?" he asked.
I told him that he knew best.
"Well," he said, "I want to know how it happens that you--a foreigner,
and a woman--happen to be living in what looks like exile--all alone on
the top of a hill--in war-time?"
I looked at him a moment--and--well, conditions like these make people
friendly with one another at once. I was, you know, never very
reticent, and in days like these even the ordinary reticences of
ordinary times are swept away.
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