've gone and spoiled the whole war for me!" she called to him.

* * * * *

The war, too, had been spoiled for Private Cowan. He was unable to keep
his mind on it. Of the Second Battle of the Marne he was to remember
little worth telling.

Two nights later they came to rest in the woods back of St. Eugene, in
the little valley of the Surmelin, that gateway to Paris from the
farthest point of the second German drive. It was a valley shining with
the gold of little wheat fields, crimson-specked with poppies. It
recalled to Private Cowan merely the farmland rolling away from that old
house of red brick where he had gone one day with Sharon
Whipple--yesterday it might have been. Even the winding creek--though
the French called theirs a river--was like the other creek, its course
marked by a tangle of shrubs and small growths; and the sides of the
valley were flanked familiarly with stony ridges sparsely covered with
second-growth timber. Newbern, he kept thinking, would lie four miles
beyond that longest ridge, and down that yellow road Sharon Whipple
might soon be driving his creaking, weathered buggy and the gaunt roan.
The buggy would sag to one side and Sharon would be sitting
"slaunchwise," as he called it. Over the ridge, at Newbern's edge, would
be the bony little girl who was so funny and willful.

They moved forward to the south bank of the Marne. Beyond that
fifty-yard stream lay the enemy, reported now to be stacking up drive
impedimenta. The reports bored Private Cowan. He wished they would hurry
the thing through. He had other matters in hand. A woman clothed with
the sun, and under her feet the moon, and upon her head a crown of--he
could not make the crown of stars seem right. She was crowned with a
nurse's cap, rusty hair showing beneath, and below this her wan,
wistful, eager face, the eyes half shutting in vain attempts to reason.
The face would be drawn by some inner torment; then its tortured lines
melt to a smile of sure conviction. But she was clothed with the sun,
and the moon was under her feet. So much he could make seem true.

The dark of a certain night fell on the waiting regiment. Crickets
sounded their note, a few silent birds winged furtively overhead.
Rolling kitchens brought up the one hot meal of the day, to be taken to
the front by carrying parties. Company commanders made a last
reconnaissance of their positions. For Private Cowan it was a moment of