ost beamed upon him. He was now a full-fledged
male. Any lingering uncertainties as to his completed manhood had
been effectually removed. His affair was viewed from the standpoint
of potent strength, not lapse from virtue. Young men had their wild
oats to sow. His mistake had been to disturb his own household. Had
it been another household, little heed would have been given.

In the Bucher minds the satisfying net result seemed to be that
another _soldier_ (it was to be hoped) was to be born for the army,
for the Kaiser. Soldiers had to be. Tekla was to fulfill her highest
mission as a German servant girl. She was to become a just and
constituent part of the swelling Empire.

Frau's ideas and information on the subject provided Gard's journal
with some more condensed material. They were talking out by the
garden table.

"What becomes of the German servant girl under such conditions?" he
inquired.

"Oh, she can get into another family and go on as before."

"And the baby? How does she manage with that?"

"She puts it out among poor farm people and pays a little for its
keep. As the mother usually works about in different
localities--sometimes being taken far away by her employers--the
farmer often adopts the baby as it grows up. He can always use more
help. If it's a girl, she is good for the farm as well as the
house. If it's a boy, he becomes a soldier. A boy of this kind makes
the best soldier because he has no parental and no home attachments.
He only knows the barracks and has the officers to obey. He does not
learn who his father is, and the mother becomes practically a
stranger to him as she moves about in the city or country. He is
ready to serve in the colonies or go anywhere or do anything, having
no personal ties to hold him."

"Does not your large army badly demoralize these social conditions?"

"You know, we housewives don't like it much when a new regiment
moves into the vicinity. It makes mothers among our domestics and we
have to change about. Of course, you see, we have more women than
men in Germany and we must have children growing up for the barracks
and the cheap labor market. There seems to be no other way, but it
is often a great nuisance for us housekeepers. Yet there is this to
say: The girls rarely have more than one child by the same man. For
another regiment comes along and there are new relations. The army
is necessarily a floating population and not very responsible for
what it d