After a fashion I have learned to study expression in faces; and on
the days immediately following, when I got out of bed and went to
Morgan-Harjes, I could tell by the expression of the clerk’s face
before he spoke to me that there was no news. I also noticed by the
expression on Henry’s face that I should begin to worry. He was not
wearing his glasses but he was squinting his eyes.
I spent most of my time in bed. I needed the rest. The crowds, the
boulevards, the early evening café life, the movies, the Follies――none
of these had any allurement for me. I think it was on the fifth day
that I ran into my poet friend young Bob Hillyer of Harvard and South
Orange, New Jersey. He too had been out to the front with an Ambulance
Section and was now on his way back to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where
he was going to accept a professorship in the university which has
made that town fairly famous.
I was very glad to see Bob Hillyer again in spite of the fact that he
told me I looked perfectly terrible and should really return to the
States and not think of going back to the front. He asked me to dinner
with himself and a friend of his. I protested, mildly suggesting that
they take dinner with me at Henry’s, but the stronger will prevailed
and the three of us had dinner together at a little quiet outdoor café
underneath the awnings.
They walked back to Henry’s with me, where my pride and hospitality
got the better of my judgment.
Wouldn’t they come in and have a little cordial before going along?
Certainly!
We went inside――the cordials were ordered――I laid down three francs.
“Four francs, fifty, Mr. Rice,” said George, who had come to know me
by name from having served me my breakfast in bed.
I picked up the three francs, put them in my pocket and said, “Please
put it on my bill, George.” It is really terrible to be apparently
well-to-do and not have any money to do it with.
Hillyer and his friend said “Good-night,” and I promptly went to bed.
It was a little past midnight I think and I had been fast asleep for
some time, back at Verdun with the bursting shells and scurrying and
scurrilous rats, when I suddenly became conscious of the fact that a
firm hand was resting on each one of my shoulders. I awoke with a
start and there stood Ned Townsend smiling broadly.
“Get up,” he said. “Don’t you know it is your turn out to post?” At
the foot of the bed stood “Red” Day. They had just reached Paris and
informed me they had come on from the front to cheer me up a bit.
“Farney” was with them too.
Why say I was glad to see them all? They sat on the side of the bed
and told me about the banquet at Bar le Duc and Ned told me that “Red”
and “Farney” were slated for the Croix de Guerre, which was very good
news.
Townsend had received the Croix de Guerre a long time before.
We had late breakfast together and they paid for it and then I went
around to Morgan-Harjes. I read the expression on the clerk’s face as
I stepped up to the window. When I left, I discovered there was a
spring to my step which had been absent on the previous days.
I walked rapidly back to Henry’s and into the hotel. Henry was in the
hallway at the foot of the stairs. As he saw me, I observed the
expression on his face――he was not wearing his glasses but his eyes
were squinted into little slits. I knew what was coming as he said he
would like to speak to me. I cheerfully replied: “It is all right, the
cablegram has come.”
When I saw Ned Townsend, “Red” Day and “Farney,” I told them they were
to have supper at a certain quiet little café of mine, opposite the
“Chinese Umbrella.”