Margaret Vandercook

“ In the few weeks of their acquaintance David Hale and Bettina had become fairly intimate friends. Indeed the young man had confided to Bettina his ambition for the future. It seemed that he had not a large fortune of his own, yet nevertheless wished to devote his time and energy not to the mere making of money, but to becoming as he expressed it, “a soldier of peace” serving his country in times of peace as a soldier serves her in war, for the honor rather than the material gain. ”

“ Burton always dressed with exquisite care.
This morning, even under the present trying conditions, her hair was as carefully arranged, her blue serge costume fitted with the same neatness and simplicity. Only her face revealed her fatigue and anxiety.
Nevertheless, as she stood gazing at her group of Camp Fire girls with a mixture of appeal and authority, some quality in her expression gave her a charm few persons ever possessed, a charm which had been partly responsible for her remarkable success as an actress. ”

“ Below Peggy could see people running into the street, windows of other houses being thrown open. Voices were calling, vive, vive everything, except, “la guerre.”
“Isn’t it a pity Tante is not with us? We shall miss her more than ever today,” Bettina added. “Yet I am glad she is not too ill to feel the deepest thankfulness even if she cannot take part in the celebration and we may manage to see her later this afternoon. Aunt Patricia, do you feel equal to going with us? The crowds may make you overtired. Don’t worry, we promise to be as careful as possible, but do let us hurry. ”

“ Bettina stopped to pay the cabman, who was the typical French cab driver in a tall battered silk hat, the girl drivers having nearly all disappeared soon after the signing of the armistice.
The other girls went on and stood at the door talking to the concierge.
Instead of joining them at once, Bettina stood hesitating at the edge of the sidewalk. Never before had she beheld such a street, or such a house as they were about to enter! The street was narrow and dark, the house had a grey, poverty stricken look and was curiously forbidding. ”

“ This time Marguerite Arnot, in spite of her annoyance, laughed.
“See here, Julie, what a ridiculous child you are. Some of the time you are so wise that one forgets you are only fourteen. Yet you are old enough to understand that I can never marry. In the first place even in ordinary times no French girl marries without her dot and I have nothing. Besides, the war has destroyed nearly a million and a half of our men. If I possessed a dowry perhaps I might some day marry a wounded soldier in order to care for him; I suppose a good many French girls will do this. ”

“ And Miss Patricia waved her hand toward the burying ground.
“Here I should like on this very hill top to build a home for the children of the soldiers who have died in France, a home where they may live, play and work together, speaking the same languages, thinking the same thoughts. We are struggling for a better understanding, a deeper unity between the allied nations. It can come best through the children whose fathers have died for the same cause. After we grow old I fear many of us learn nothing and forget nothing. ”

“ Yet can one ever escape the consequence of weakness? Julie had been left behind, without training, without a natural sense of honor, to repeat his mistakes, unless some one would help her to a new ideal of life. So far there had been no such influence for good in the young French girl’s life.
Marguerite Arnot, Julie cared for devotedly, nevertheless, although this may not have appeared upon the surface, of the two girls Julie Dupont possessed the stronger nature. ”

“ Then think of all she has done for us since our arrival in glorious France, first at our farmhouse on the Aisne and now as guests in this charming French house! Why, we are actually wearing the clothes she has insisted upon having made for us, not only that we may be dressed in a proper holiday fashion to celebrate the approach of peace, but that she may keep her little French dressmaker Marguerite Arnot, her latest protégé, constantly employed. What an artist Marguerite is! If I could persuade her to return to Washington with me, mother would forgive me every fault. ”

“ The younger of the two American girls shook her head impatiently.
“Please give up that fallacy, Bettina; I have not been ill, I have never been seriously ill in my life. I simply spent six weeks in the country to satisfy Aunt Patricia and to enjoy being as lazy as I wished. Some day perhaps I may tell you what made me unhappy after our retreat to Paris, but not now. At present I am going to desert you not so much because I am tired as because Peggy Webster and Ralph Marshall in their present engaged state bore me. ”

“ An Intimate Conversation
“Do you like it here, Marguerite? Are you never lonely for the little room in the old house in Paris?”
Marguerite Arnot was seated before a window of a sunny room on the third floor of Miss Patricia’s house in Versailles. The walls were papered with a bright paper, the furniture covered in French chintz and on the table nearby were a heap of soft materials of many colors.
Marguerite was sewing on a piece of blue chiffon. She lifted her eyes from her work to smile on the younger girl beside her who was also occupied in the same fashion. ”

“ Later other delegates continued to arrive, the Camp Fire girls leaning perilously over their balcony to watch them, Miss Patricia and Mrs. Burton crowding close behind.
All at once a different emotion swept over the crowd in the street.
Bettina Graham turned to clutch Mrs. Burton by the arm.
“President Wilson!”
There was no need for her explanation. At this instant the American girls were convinced that the fanfare of trumpets was expressing a more ardent welcome. Everywhere faces had brightened, women were seen holding up their babies in their arms. ”

“ You are mistaken. Nevertheless, come along to lunch if you like. No one will have enough to eat, but I would have you on my conscience if you should feel hurt at being left out. Not that you would have the faintest right to be hurt, David Hale. You are absolutely nothing to any of us except a new acquaintance.”
[192]
After arguing that he was really a great deal more to her than a mere acquaintance, but that Miss Patricia was so far unwilling to acknowledge it, David Hale appeared at the hour of the luncheon with as much cheerfulness as if he had been the most sought after of all the guests. ”

“ She would go and tell Marguerite Arnot that Bettina and David Hale desired her to join them for the afternoon’s expedition to the Queen’s secret garden at Versailles.
Julie Arnot was a student of human nature. Discovering that Marguerite believed herself to have been invited and was eager for the pleasure, neither Bettina nor David would be sufficiently unkind to reveal the truth. ”

“ Moreover, she knew that at present she had neither strength nor time for argument with her niece.
“We must either decide it is wisest for us all to leave here for Paris, or all to remain here,” Bettina Graham added at this instant. “Certainly, Tante, no one of us will consider going on without you, or even leaving just one of us here to face the situation with you. It is my opinion that the way to meet the present difficulty is to meet it together. Our chief trouble now is, not so much our own danger, as our uncertainty and worry over Aunt Patricia, Vera and Sally. ”

“ Naturally we cannot see at present how any one of us can help toward the future peace of society. And yet Alice is right when she insists that every tiny quota does make some difference. Every life that both preaches and practices peace is an influence for peace.
“But there is a suggestion I wish to make, which may strike you girls as more impracticable than any one else’s. You girls must have read and heard, as I have recently, that a surprising amount of ill feeling has been developing between the French and American soldiers since the close of the war. ”

“ When four of the girls climbed into the motor, she stood nearby talking to them. Peggy Webster was only a few feet away, making no effort to enter, and yet with her preparations for the trip as complete as any one else.
“This is not goodbye, girls, merely the French adieu! Really I suppose both the farewells mean ‘God be with you till we meet again.’ As for me I shall see you soon, along with Aunt Patricia, Sally and Vera. Afterwards we shall remain in Paris until the Allies win the war. This cannot be far off, this temporary German success is the last flare of a dying fire. ”

“ And yet until that hour no one of her household had believed her equal to the least exertion!
Only a short time before, her husband, Captain Burton, had at last considered her to have grown sufficiently strong for him to leave, in order that he might continue his Red Cross work in France. And afterwards how strictly she had been guarded by Miss Patricia and the Camp Fire girls!
There is a familiar axiom that necessity knows no law. At present Mrs. Burton did not believe that she felt any the worse from her recent experiences save an increasing weariness. ”

“ Miss Patricia Lord, who was wearing a dingy black costume which she had purchased at a reduced price some months before at the Bon Marché and had worn almost constantly since, now eyed Mrs. Burton’s grey and rose colored gown with extreme disfavor.
“You were not intending to appear at dinner in your dressing gown, were you, Polly Burton? Is that your idea of making a suitable impression upon our guest? I had a gown sent to you today from a shop in Paris. It is now on your bed ready for you to put on. If you do not happen to like it, it does not matter as I admire it very much. ”

“ During the months of their work in one of the devastated districts of France, Miss Patricia had at least appeared to dislike her friendship with the distinguished Frenchman. However, since their arrival in Paris and now at Versailles, there might be a number of ways in which a French senator might be of service to the Camp Fire girls. Bettina’s recent adventure particularly emphasized the fact that his friendship might prove useful. And Miss Patricia was not in the least averse to using persons for the sake of her friends, provided that she did them no harm. ”

“ And in no place in the world can the spring be more enchanting than in Paris and the country surrounding Paris.
Instead of a motor car, David Hale had secured the services of an old fashioned Paris cab for their expedition. He wished to make the drive to the Queen’s garden a slow one, as it was not of great length.
First they drove through the town of Versailles. Then they entered the park near an avenue which led past the Little Trianon. They passed The Temple of Love, a charming little building formed of columns with a white cupola and a statue of the Cupid inside. ”

“ Bettina is not wealthy as Americans think of money, but she is wealthy of course as compared with us. Peggy Webster is Mrs. Burton’s niece, the daughter of her twin sister, and Peggy is engaged to marry the young American lieutenant, whom she knew long ago, when the Camp Fire girls spent a summer near the Arizona desert. I only know what Peggy told me of this herself. Her home is in New Hampshire, where her father owns a large farm. They are not wealthy, Peggy insists, although the young man whom she is to marry has a great deal of money in his family. ”

“ Neither do I see why Bettina’s suggestion, that we try in some humble fashion to help toward peace, need be altogether scorned. Each human being can contribute a tiny quota. In the future women are to be allowed the vote, which means a voice in just such questions as may decide war or peace. Our own group of Camp Fire girls is growing up so that in a few more years we shall perhaps be too old to think of ourselves as Camp Fire girls and must begin the work of guardians. ”

“ For my part I will undertake to find some interesting women in Paris who will agree to aid us with our French Camp Fire and take charge of it after we leave France. We must interest poorer French girls as well as rich ones, we must introduce them by letter to Camp Fire girls in the United States so they may exchange ideas and plans and learn from each other. I hate to confess the fact that you girls are growing older and must soon look forward to undertaking the duties of Camp Fire guardians, nevertheless it is true. ”

“ Did you know, Marguerite, that Miss Lord has also asked the group of girls with whom I used to live, her own French Camp Fire group, to go with her to work among the poor children in the devastated country? They are to sew for the poor and help in any way possible in order that they may be trained perhaps as teachers for the home for orphan children which Miss Lord hopes at some future time to establish in France. ”

“ When no one is supposed to be paying any attention to you, you appear terribly depressed. As a matter of fact, Sally, you are not the type of girl who should ever have come over to do war work. The fellows have all said that some of the girls had better have stayed at home and made bandages and knit socks.”
At this Sally appeared deeply hurt.
“You are not kind, Dan, even if what you say is in a measure true. Recently it has seemed awfully difficult for me to take the proper interest in the work of organizing the Camp Fire in France, as the other girls are doing. ”