The conductor seemed impatient. Joan sprang upon the step and waved her hand. They neither spoke during the short walk between the two hotels. But at the door she turned and held out her hands to him.!

The doctor himself was a broad-shouldered, bullet-headed man, clean shaven, with close-cropped, bristly hair. He had curiously square hands, with short, squat fingers. He had been head surgeon in one of the Paris hospitals, and had been assigned his present post because of his marvellous quickness with the knife. The hospital was the nearest to a hill of great strategical importance, and the fighting in the neighbourhood was almost continuous. Often a single ambulance would bring in three or four cases, each one demanding instant attention. Dr. Poujoulet, with his hairy arms bare to the shoulder, would polish them off one after another, with hardly a moment’s rest between, not allowing time even for the washing of the table. Joan would have to summon all her nerve to keep herself from collapsing. At times the need for haste was such that it was impossible to wait for the anaesthetic to take effect. The one redeeming feature was the extraordinary heroism of the men, though occasionally there was nothing for it but to call in the orderlies to hold some poor fellow down, and to deafen one’s ears. She looked at him and smiled. “It’s quite easy,” she answered. “I always see her as she lay there with all the sorrow gone from her. She looked so beautiful and kind.”

“I am getting thin, ain’t I?” she said. “I always wanted to be thin.” They both laughed. The firelight played about her hair. “I suppose every woman dreams of reviving the old French Salon,” she answered. “They must have been gloriously interesting.” He was leaning forward with clasped hands. “Why shouldn’t she?” he said. “The reason that our drawing-rooms have ceased to lead is that our beautiful women are generally frivolous and our clever women unfeminine. What we are waiting for is an English Madame Roland.” “Perhaps,” she added, “the helpmate theory was intended to apply only to our bodies. There was nothing said about our souls. Perhaps God doesn’t have to work in pairs. Perhaps we were meant to stand alone.”