_Noel_
It was Christmas morning in southern France. For several hours a light
snow had been falling, but had not stayed upon the ground. Yet it
clothed the branches of the trees with white lace and filled the air
with jewels.
Walking alone a slender girl with dark hair and eyes lifted her face to
let the snow melt upon her cheeks. She looked fragile, as if she were
just recovering from an illness, nor did her expression betray any
special interest in Christmas.
"These woods are as lovely as I remember them," she said aloud. "It is
true, I never could find a place in Belgium I liked half so well."
Then she stopped a moment and glanced around her.
"I do hope Barbara and Dick won't discover I have run away. I feel as
much a truant as if I were a small girl. But they surely won't be
tramping through my woods at present, when they assured me they would
spend several hours at the chateau. So I can't be found out till it is
too late. I feel I must see Nicolete's little log house and Nona's 'Pool
of Melisande.'"
Ten minutes after Eugenia arrived at the desired place. The lake of
clear water which she had once described as the "pool of truth" was
today covered with a thin coating of ice at its edges. The center was as
untroubled as it had always been. Above it tall evergreen trees leaned
so close to one another that their summits almost touched.
Eugenia breathed deeply of the fragrance of the snow and the pine. The
day was an unusually cold one for this part of the country, but the
winter was being everywhere severe. It was as if nature would make no
easier the task of her children's destruction of each other.
But Eugenia was not thinking of warlike things at this hour. She was
merely feeling a physical pleasure in her own returning strength.
Yet just as she was congratulating herself on having been able to walk
so far without tiring, the girl experienced a sudden, overpowering
sensation of fatigue.
For several moments she stood upright fighting her weakness; she even
turned and started back toward home. Then recognizing her own folly,
Eugenia looked for a place to rest.
But she did not look very far nor in but one direction. Yes, the log was
there in the same place it had been six months before.
With a half smile at herself Eugenia sat down. She was not deceived, for
she understood perfectly why she had wished to come back to this
neighborhood and why today she had wanted to walk alone into these
woods.
But there could be no wrong in what she was doing, since no one would
ever guess her reason.
Eugenia was sincerely pleased over Barbara's and Dick's happiness. But
she would never confess herself so completely surprised as Barbara
demanded that she be. She merely announced that if one of the girls felt
compelled to marry (and she supposed they could not all hope to escape
the temptation of their nursing experiences in Europe), at least she was
grateful that Barbara had chosen to bestow her affection upon an
American. Personally, she felt convinced that no foreign marriage could
be a success.
Yet here sat Eugenia in an extremely sentimental attitude with the light
snow falling about her. More than this, she was in an equally
sentimental state of mind. But then nothing of this kind matters when
one chances to be entirely alone. Dreams are one's own possession.
Then the girl heard a sound that entirely accorded with her train of
thought.
It was a slow velvet-like tread moving in her direction.
In another moment Duke had approached and laid his great head in her
lap. He did not move again; there was no foolish wagging of his tail.
These expressions of emotion were meant for lesser beasts; Duke
revealed his joy and his affection in a beautiful, almost a thrilling
silence.
Eugenia had not seen her old friend since her arrival at the farmhouse a
few days before. For some reason he had not called there with François
and she had not been outside the house until today. Their trip had been
a long and tiring one and she was more exhausted than she had expected
to be.
But this was a far more satisfactory reunion and Eugenia was sincerely
moved.
She put her own thin cheek down on Duke's silver head and remained as
still as he was. Truly _he_ had not forgotten!
Captain Castaigne found them like this when he appeared within the next
few seconds.
He made no pretence of a greeting. Instead he frowned upon his one-time
friend as severely as she might have upon him had their positions been
reversed.
"It is not possible that you are in the woods in this snowstorm,
Eugenie! Miss Meade told me that I should find you at the little
farmhouse. Take my arm and we will return as quickly as possible."
With entire meekness Eugenia did as she was told. She did not even
remember to be amused at this young Frenchman's amazing fashion of
ordering her about. But she was surprised into speechlessness at his
unexpected appearance.
"Only yesterday your mother assured us you were in northern France with
your regiment," Eugenia murmured as she was being escorted along the
path toward home. "She insisted that there was no possible prospect of
your returning to this neighborhood in many months."
Captain Castaigne smiled. "Is that American frankness, Eugenie? We
French people prefer to leave certain things to the imagination. Of
course, I understand that you would never have come to the farmhouse had
you dreamed of my being nearby. However, I am here for the purpose of
seeing you. My mother did not intend to deceive you; I had not told her
of my intention. But we will not talk of these things until we arrive at
home. You are too weary to speak."
This was so manifestly true that Eugenia made no attempt at argument.
She was fatigued, and yet there was something else keeping her silent.
How splendidly well Captain Castaigne looked! His face was less boyish
than she remembered it. But then she had not understood him at the
beginning of their acquaintance. It had been stupid of her too, because
no soldier receives the Cross of the Legion of Honor who has not put
aside boyish things.
Because it was Christmas day, Noel as the French term it, the living
room at the farmhouse was gay with evergreens. But better than this, a
real fire burned in the fireplace.
Eugenia let her companion take off her long nursing cloak and she
herself removed her cap.
Then she stood revealed a different Eugenia, because of Barbara's taste
and determination.
Instead of her uniform or her usual shabby, ill-made dress, she wore an
exquisite pale gray crepe de chine, which made a beauty of her
slenderness. About her throat there were folds of white and in her belt
a dull, rose-velvet rose. This costume had been purchased in Paris as
the girls passed through and Eugenia wore it today in honor of
Christmas.
Without a doubt Eugenia looked pale and ill, but her hair was twisted
about her head like a dull brown coronet and the shadows about her eyes
revealed their new depth and sweetness.
When she sat down again, drawing near the fire with a little shiver,
Captain Castaigne came and knelt beside her.
No American could have done this without awkwardness and
self-consciousness. Yet there was no hint of either in the young French
officer's attitude. Seeing him, Eugenia forgot her past narrowness and
the critical misunderstanding of a nature that cannot appreciate
temperaments and circumstances unlike their own. She was reminded of the
picture of a young French knight, the St. Louis of France, whom she had
seen among the frescoes of the Pantheon in Paris.
Very gravely Captain Castaigne raised Eugenia's hand to his lips.
"I care for you more than I did when I told you of my love and you would
not believe. I shall go on caring. How long must I serve before you
return my affection?"
Eugenia shook her head fretfully like a child.
"But it isn't a question of my caring. I told you that there were a
thousand other things that stood between us, Henri."
Then she drew her hand away and laid it lightly upon the young man's
head.
"This house has many memories for me. Perhaps when I am an old woman you
will let me come back here and live a part of each year. May I buy the
house from your mother? Ask her as a favor to me?"
Eugenia was trying her best to return to her old half maternal treatment
of the young officer. This had been the attitude which she had used in
the months of his illness in the little "Farmhouse with the Blue Front
Door."
But this time their positions were reversed.
"We will talk of that another time," he returned. "Now you must be fair
with me. I will not accept such an answer as you gave me before. I must
be told the truth."
Captain Castaigne had gotten up and stood looking down upon Eugenia.
"I return to my regiment tomorrow. You must tell me today."
In reply the girl let her hands fall gently into her lap and gazed
directly into the handsome, clear-cut face above her own.
"Why should I try to deceive you? It would be only sheer pretence. You
are the only man I have ever cared for or ever shall. But I'll never
marry you under any possible circumstances. I am too old and too
unattractive and too--oh, a hundred other things."
But Captain Castaigne was smiling in entire serenity.
"We will marry at the little 'Farmhouse with the Blue Front Door' during
my next leave of absence."
But Barbara and Dick were at this moment entering the blue front door.
Half an hour later, when they had finished Christmas dinner, Dick
Thornton drew a magazine from his pocket, which had on its cover the
sign of the Red Cross.
"Here is a poem some one in America has written called 'She of the Red
Cross.' Will you listen while I read it to you? To me the poem, of
course, means Barbara and to Captain Castaigne, Eugenia."
"She fulfills the dramatic destiny of woman,
Because she stands valiant, in the presence of pestilence,
And faces woe unafraid,
And binds up the wounds made by the wars of men.
She fights to defeat pain,
And to conquer torture,
And to cheat death of his untimely prey.
And her combat is for neither glory nor gain, but, with charity
and mercy and compassion as her weapons, she storms incessantly
the ramparts of grief.
There thrills through her life never the sharp, sudden thunder of
the charge, never the swift and ardent rush of the short,
decisive conflict--the tumult of applauding nations does not
reach her ears--and the courage that holds her heart high comes
from the voice of her invincible soul.
She fulfills the dramatic destiny of woman because,
reared to await the homage of man and to receive his service, she
becomes when the war trumps sound, the servitor of the world.
And because whenever men have gone into battle, women have borne
the real burden of the fray,
And because since the beginning of time, man when he is hurt or
maimed turns to her and finds, in her tenderness, the consolation
and comfort which she alone can give.
Thus she of the Red Cross stands today, as woman has stood always,
the most courageous and the most merciful figure in all history.
She is the Valor of the World."
* * * * * *
The fourth volume in the American Red Cross Girls series will be called
"The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army."
In this volume the four girls will return to the scene of actual
fighting. They will be with the Russian army in their retreat. Moreover,
certain characters introduced in the first book will reappear in the
fourth, so increasing the excitement and interest of the plot. A new
romance differing from the others plays an unexpected part in the life
of one of the girls. The story may safely promise to have more important
developments than any of the past volumes.