ught in terms of his.
It was all copy to him. Each group that followed another up the gangway
carried the promise of a story to Peter. There were Red Cross nurses,
canteen workers, a college unit for reconstruction work, a hospital unit,
scores of detached American officers going over for the first time, scores
of French and British returning, a few foreigners getting back to their
respective countries, and hosts of non-descripts whose civilian clothes
gave no hint of their missions. Last of all came a sudden, swift influx of
celestial blue.

Peter smiled at them with anticipation, "Look, Leerie, the Blue Devils of
France! There ought to be the making of a good yarn."

But Sheila barely heard. The mass had captured her imagination on the
instant with a dramatic intensity too overpowering to be denied.
Unconsciously she smiled. They were going back to fight again--to be
wounded. Who knew--in a month she might be nursing some of them. The Blue
Devils had reached the gangway; they were just below them when one looked
up. Black eyes as unfathomable as forest pools looked into Sheila's quiet
gray ones. For a moment there was almost a greeting flashed between them;
as if they recognized something common to them both that lay in the past
or the future. It was one of those gossamer threads of fate that a few
glimpse rarely in their lives.

Peter saw, and was on the point of giving tongue to his astonishment when
a voice from behind interrupted them: "The ship sails at ten; it lacks
thirty seconds of that. There is the typical instance of the way these
Devils obey their orders. Is it not so?"

The voice savored of France. Sheila and Peter turned together to find a
little man, with a small, pleasant face, topped with shaggy brown hair,
and dabs of mustache and beard placed like a colon under his nose. His
shrug was the conclusive evidence of his nationality.

"Well, thirty seconds is enough," laughed Sheila. "Time is as precious as
food, gold, or gunpowder these days. Why waste it?"

"And men," supplemented the little man. "Perhaps, mad'moiselle already
knows Bertrand Fauchet, the young captain who passed below?"

Sheila shook her head.

The little man rubbed his hands together in keen enjoyment. "Ah, there is
a man; but they are all men. The Boches have named them well. They fight
like demons, then they rest and play like children until their turn comes
to fight again. And Fauchet--he is a devil of a devil, possessed of