author:C. N. Williamson

“ The Minx gave me a look. It seemed to adopt me as a human ally. Also it had a strange, dreamy wistfulness, a yearning which made me wonder.
"I wish I could go to the front!" she sighed.
Kate laughed shortly. Even mother smiled. But it was not a smile in which you could bask.
"Fronts are not for frivolous folk," she said, with effective alliteration.
"I'm not frivolous!" exclaimed Miss Mix, opening her eyes wide.
"Aren't you?" asked mother. She then rose. "Kate and Harry, we are all tired. Shall we go to bed?" ”

“ The Minx was dashed. Doubtless she had expected praise—even thanks! No soldier going "over the top" in icy dawn, in the face of asphyxiating gas, machine guns, liquid fire, and under an enemy barrage, not to speak of aeroplanes, can have felt what I felt. I stammered explanations.
"You see, I couldn't get a taxi, so she took me in her car. It was the car that made the difference. They couldn't have sent us without. We owe everything to Miss Mix——"
"I refuse to owe anything to Miss Mix," said Mother. "This is monstrous." ”

“ I caught the girl giggling. Telepathy told me she pictured Mother on one of these small folding chairs, and I too suppressed a gurgle.
ALL roads leading out from Paris eastward are roads to Germany, and so towards Germany our big British car turned her nose in defiance. She had six cylinders and the power of sixty super-horses. She drank distance like petrol (here I might pun, seeing that she soon plunged us into Champagne) and she made better time than the fastest train of war days. As for an adventure, it wouldn't be her fault if we had one! ”

“ It's decidedly firm, with a childlike firmness, and a dimple that's a mere shadow of a dimple. Her throat is long and slender; Kate says, thin; but if that's true, it's a delicate, attractive thinness; and her collar-bones are like a very young girl's. She doesn't mind showing them, and a good deal of milky skin besides between the turn-over, soft collars of open blouses.
I have seen processions of these blouses since the first, for evidently she doesn't fear washing bills: a clean blouse twice a day sometimes, and a handkerchief to use, a handkerchief to lose, every three or four hours. ”

“ Henry Wayne occupies a position among women which the Matterhorn occupies among mountains. She waved the Minx back to her officers, and held her own ground at her table. Not until a decent interval had elapsed did she arise and stalk to the ascenseur. Kate followed, I followed, though if I'd had a trained astral body I'd gladly have sent it instead.
I draw a veil over the scene upstairs; out half an hour later I crawled down again and ordered a go of brandy. I needed it after what I'd been through. But I had made Mother see that to go to the Front with a Minx was nobler than not to go at all. ”

“ Altogether a most unsuitable girl in a most unsuitable costume, with an unsuitable dog and a set of unsuitable tricks for a boat crossing to France in war time.
NOW about ourselves.
Nearly everyone who matters must have been reading mother's books for the last quarter of a century, as her publishers on both sides of the Atlantic advertise sales by the hundred thousand. Her latest portrait appears in each new volume therefore Mrs. Henry Wayne's millions of readers, serious, earnest persons, know her at her best. She isn't, perhaps, quite at her best in travelling. ”

“ The Minx scrawled on a piece of paper, "Miss Nancy Mix, Dexter, Kentucky." She then hesitated a few seconds, pencil in hand, gave one of her little gasps, and dashed down an addition underneath, "cousin of the American General Benjamin F. Mix."
"There!" she breathed, as the soldier moved towards a distant door. "If they're in doubt about seeing me, that may be a trump! You were saying yourself, Americans are popular, and a general——"
"Does he exist?" I couldn't help enquiring. (Perhaps this avenged mother) . ”

“ Can you guess?"
"I can never guess conundrums on an empty—fasting."
"War bread does sort of sharpen one's wits," said the girl. "Well, I want you please, please, to introduce me to HIM."
"To 'him?'"
"The man who fixes things up about going to the front. Or if your mother wouldn't like you to introduce me, let me walk in under your wing. I'll do the rest! The concierge says it's hard to get taxis early in the morning these days, and you have to wait an age. So I 'phoned for Lord John's car to come round (the kind boy has lent it to me all the time he's in Havre, days and days!) ”

“ IF, at this moment we had not already been in the car, a luxurious limousine, mother might have preferred waiting indefinitely, or marching miles to the Metro, rather than be "saddled" with the girl. She couldn't pile the whole party out, however. And if any cat may look at any king, any girl can go to any hotel even if patronized by Mrs. Henry Wayne. There was still a hope that all the rooms might be taken, we having wired for ours; but though the Wellesley was almost complet, there remained a suite; double bedroom, bath and private salon on the first floor. ”

“ Henry Wayne to Monsieur Dariot. By a gracious concession she encouraged me to speak, to explain my business and mention hers, which I found myself doing as if hypnotized.
MONSIEUR DARIOT, who spoke English, assured me that madame, my mother's, work was known in France. He had heard of the papers for which mademoiselle my cousin wrote. Naturally I would be permitted to escort them if they visited the front. But—it was easier to send men than women. Men could join any party being made up, whereas ladies must have one arranged for them. ”

“ Mother and Kate sat tight, with a broad backed effect, ignoring the irruption. Laughing and chaffing, the party had seated itself, when the concierge advanced with an official-looking envelope. So official was it that Mother held out a hand. "It will be our permit," she said. But the concierge went on to the next table: and a moment later there was a silvery squeak from the Minx. She jumped up. The officers jumped up too, and retrieved one bead bag, one fan, one handkerchief, one parasol, and a few other things that fell. ”

“ But it sounds like a woman's journal."
"Oh, it is," the Minx cut him short. "That's why it's so influential. It sells by millions. There's lots more women than men in America. It's we who are IT—I mean it's we who decide things. If we didn't want the men to go to war and fight with the Allies they wouldn't. They couldn't, you see. Why, they'd have to fight for the Germans if we insisted. If you want a thing done, put it in a woman's paper. Politicians do. ”

“ But I didn't contradict mother. One doesn't! She's the type of Woman—and Mother—spelt with a capital, and I confess to having passed twenty-seven years in awe of her.
(Speaking of confessions, this will turn into one, I foresee, mixed with adventures at the front. I shan't dare sign my name for fear of mother, but under borrowed plumes I shall be safe. Mother never reads "modern stuff"—except her own.)
We and the girl were on the boat crossing from Southampton to Havre when we saw her first. She had a little white dog attached to her; also a large brown British officer. ”

“ I even suggested that this might be the case, but mother and Kate (Kate Whitley is my second cousin) , both sat upon the suggestion, if not upon me. They agreed that affairs of that sort are always started by the girl and are the girl's fault.
The boat flirtation, however, was only one reason why mother pronounced the girl horrible. Another reason was the dog—a curly white fluff, with a feather tail, a black nose and bright-bead eyes, a creature like a toy come to life.
No young woman would dream of travelling with such an animal unless she deliberately desired to attract attention. ”

“ Mother had forgotten the Minx, who had made friends in the hotel, especially among British officers on leave, and had soared to a pinnacle of popularity with a newly arrived lot of American aviators. The appalling young person had, it seemed, been suppressed as a family nuisance ”

“ It made her sallow, contradicted the nice blue of her eyes and caused her brown hair to look dust color. She and mother felt pride in their plain appearance, and betrayed this in their manner. They were travelling to France on a high mission. Mother meant to write a book concerned with the war, and wished to study conditions on the spot. The scenes she would treat were on the French front, or rather, several French fronts, the British not allowing their fronts to be seen by the eyes of women. ”

“ Few ladies are allowed there. (I knew this, and even mother feared to ask for Verdun.) "I am not quite sure of that place—even for you, Miss Mix. But Nancy, with the evacuated cities in the direction of the eastern front, certainly! As you have a car, you can start as soon as we apply to Headquarters and get a response. You can fill a form which I will give you, with particulars about yourself, and the name of your great paper. Your chauffeur must fill one. ”

“ I felt this in a less degree, but—mother was upstair in that dressing gown, and it would be pleasant to whirl through early morning Paris in a car alone with Nancy Mix. After that, the deluge! And it would be brutal to refuse.
IN the Rue Frederic Premier (this isn't the real name of the street) is situated an important bureau. Its business is to see Personages (they must be personages with a large capital P) who have reasons for wishing to visit any of the French fronts. The bureau probes these reasons, and decides whether they justify the desired visit. ”

“ It seemed impossible that anyone should live, no matter how paltry or provincial, to whom that name meant nothing. "My books you may never have read, as they sell only a few hundred thousand yearly in America. ”