She was hoarse in the morning, and white with fatigue, but when one of the women said, “You can’t keep this up, Drusilla, you can’t stand it,” she smiled.  “They stand it is the trenches, and some of them are so tired.”

She was as fresh as paint, however, on Saturday, when she met Dr. McKenzie in Paris.  “I have had two hot baths, and all my clothes are starched and ironed and fluted by an adorable Frenchwoman who opened her house for me,” she announced as she sat down with him at a corner table.  “I never wore fluted things before, but you can’t imagine how civilizing it is after you’ve been letting yourself down.”

The Doctor was tired, and he looked it.  “No one has starched and fluted me.”

“Poor man.  I’m glad you ran away from it all for a minute with me.  Captain Hewes thought he might be able to come.  But I haven’t heard from him, have you?”

“No.  But he may blow in at any moment.  It seems queer, doesn’t it, Drusilla, that you and I should be over here with all the rest of them left behind.”

She hesitated, then brought it out without prelude.  “Hilda came to see me.”

“To see you?  Why?”

“She is broken-hearted because you won’t let her work with you.”

“I told her I could not.  And she hasn’t any heart to break.”

“I wonder if you’d mind,” Drusilla ventured, “telling me what’s the matter.”

“A rather squalid story,” but he told it.  “She wanted to marry the General.”

“Poor thing.”

He glanced at her in surprise.  “Then you defend her?”

“Oh, no—­no.  But think of having to marry to get the—­the fleshpots, and to miss all of the real meanings.  I talked to Hilda for a long time, and somehow before she left she made me feel sorry.  She wants so much that she will never have.  And she will grow hard and bitter because life isn’t giving her all that she demands.”

“Did she ask you to plead her cause?”

“Yes,” frankly.  “She feels that you ought to give her another chance.”

He ran his fingers through his crinkled hair.  “I don’t want her.  I’m afraid of her.”

“Afraid?”

“She sees the worst that is in me, and brings it to the surface.  And when I protest, she laughs and insists that I don’t know myself.  That I am a sort of Dr. Jekyll, with the Mr. Hyde part of me asleep—­”

“And you let her scare you like that?”

He nodded.  “Every man has a weak spot, and mine is wanting the world to think well of me.”

“Think well of yourself.  What would Jean say if she heard you talking like this?”

“Jean?” she was startled by the breaking up of his face into deep lines of trouble.  “Do you know what she is doing, Drusilla?  She is staying in that great old house playing daughter to the General.”

“Marion says the General’s affection for her is touching—­he doesn’t want her out of his sight.”