impossible."

The guardian of the second gate took her plea in a way that did
more credit to his heart than to his knowledge of geography. He
thought (and we made no effort to disillusionize him) that she had
come all the way from America since the outbreak of war. It nearly
moved him to tears. Was he surrendering? Almost. But recovering
his official negative head-shake and trusting not to words, he fell
back upon the formula: "No, Madame, c'est impossible."

The truth had failed and so had the half-truth. To the next
forbidding guard Marie came as a Red Cross nurse, hurrying to
her station.

"Your uniform, Madame," he interposed.

"No time to get a uniform; no time to get a permission," she
explained.

"Take time, Madame," was his brusque dismissal.

Each time rebuffed, she tried again, but against the full battery of
her blandishments the line was adamant.

"It's no use," I said. "We may as well go home."

"No retreat until we've tried our last reserves," she responded,
clinking some coins together in her hand. "We'll try a change of
tactics."

We reconnoitered and decided that an opening might be made
through guardian number two. He had almost surrendered in the
first engagement. This time, along with the smile, she flashed a
coin. Perchance he had already repented of his first refusal.
Anyhow, if an officer of France could be made happy with his
sweetheart and at the same time a brave gendarme could be
made richer by a five-franc piece, would not La Belle France fight
so much the better? The logic was incontestable. "This way,
Mademoiselle, Monsieur, and be quick, please."

We had passed through the lines into a riot of red and blue
uniforms. Soldiers were everywhere sprawled over the platforms,
knotted up in sleep, yawning, stretching their limbs, eating,
smoking and swearing. No one knew anything about tickets, trains
or aught else.

Swirled about in an eddying tide of entraining troops, we were
flung up against a stationary being garbed as a railway dispatcher.
He bluffed and blustered a bit. Our story, however, supplemented
by some hard cash, procured calm and presently we found
ourselves in a compartment with two tickets marked Melun, a few
rations and sundry admonitions not to converse with fellow-
passengers until the train started.

It is hard to explain why any one should want to communicate in
German to an American girl in a French railway compartment in
wartime. But explain why some pe