C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

“ Suze did not put on mourning for Bob. He had hated crape, and half in joke one day had made her promise not to wear it “if I don't come back.” It was the same day she had promised to think of him whenever she saw violets. She carried out her threat of not saving a sou, and bought herself pretty things. It was her one pleasure—a dangerous pleasure, Madame Durand feared: but it was worse than useless remonstrating with Suze in these days. One got one's head snapped off!
The girl was prettier than she had been, though not in a “good way,” her mother anxiously thought as the spring opened. ”

“ Prince Paul de Courlaine opened the way; but in Suze's plan he was only the means to an end. She wouldn't wait for him to tire of her and throw her aside. No! The moment he had made her known and given her a footing, she would leave him and start an independent life high up at the top of the demimonde. By that time she would have learned to be a woman of the world, and she would have a great success, one of the historic courtesans of Paris such as the girls at Calline Sœurs and Phrynette's talked of. As for Mother and Rose Marie, it would be for them to choose. ”

“ Instead of taking Rose Marie for a walk, Suze went out alone early, met De Courlaine in his car and lunched with him at a country restaurant. He told her she was the sweetest and prettiest girl he had ever seen, different from any other, and that it was abominable she should waste her youth in hard work. ”

“ Madame Durand was sure every man must turn to stare at the new Suze, and she watched the clock at night when the girl ought to come home.
Women seemed to care as much about clothes as before the war. Phrynette had great luck with her clients. She saw, as Calline Sœurs had seen, that Suze Durand had a “personality.” She too sent the girl sometimes to pacify vexed clients who had been kept waiting. Suze would go out looking pretty and smart, accompanied by a trotteur carrying a box with the delayed order ”

“ In the middle of the week she was too ill to go to work. She didn't care whether she lost her place with Calline Sœurs or not. So the days passed—if you could call them days. Suze wondered that she was alive. Yet she must live—to know.
Then at last she did know. A comrade—a man named Le Brun, about whom Bob had spoken—wrote. Bob had asked him to write to Mademoiselle Durand if anything happened. He had been wounded himself, in the attack where Bob fell, but now he was better. Bob had been reported missing at first, as perhaps Mademoiselle Durand had somehow learned ”

“ He is not strong yet, for he has been months in hospital, but he told me to let you know, if I got through, that he thinks of you always. You are to go on waiting for him, and he will come perhaps with the next violets. There was a crash in the sitting-room, and Mother rushed in to find Suze on the floor in a dead faint, with the telegram in her hand.
So the prayers to God and all the kindest saints had not been wasted; for mothers know that joy does not kill. ”

“ She would make them rich if they liked. If they didn't like, if they threw her over, then it couldn't be helped. And at worst she would post them money anonymously which they would have to use, because they couldn't send it back.
The next day, Monday, Suze started out at the usual hour as if to go to work, without any good-by kisses. Kissing had ceased to be since “Suze had changed.” Instead of going to Phrynette's, or to the rendezvous, she sat in the little park until she thought De Courlaine had been kept on tenterhooks long enough. ”

“ Will you promise, kiddie, to think of me when you see violets?”
That was an easy promise. Suze gave it with all her heart.
THEY parted that night, at the door of Madame Durand's flat; and they did not meet again, for Bob's offer of himself for the Foreign Legion was accepted. Any man can be enlisted for the Legion at any time and anywhere, in France: and in war-days they are not packed off to Algeria or Cochin China. Bob was a worthy offering. ”

“ The small table was almost covered with violets. With his own hands Bob had sprinkled flowers over the white cloth, and there was an immense, flat bunch, made according to Bob's orders, for Suze to pin at her breast—the “sort of bunch smart American girls wear,” he explained. There was a purple ribbon, and a purple-headed pin; that was the American way.
“How shall I live without you?” she asked with a choke in her voice. “There's nothing but you in life. ”

“ That was just why she wanted them, argued Suze, and the two stood disputing the price. Finally the woman took a step to move away. She would have thought that so chic and jolie a demoiselle could afford fifty centimes for violets to one whose husband and son were mobilized! But if not— This was too much for Suze. She was ready to buy the flowers and walk home, even if she had to carry Rose Marie! Rose Marie grabbed her sister's gown. “Sister, you mustn't!” she pleaded. “I'm not strong enough to walk. ”

“ He had no one belonging to him over on the other side, now his mother was dead, and as soon as his firm could get a man in his place,—he wouldn't leave them in the lurch—he intended to join the Foreign Legion. ”