y do?--but wait and
pray! Other nations must not judge us--our men know what they want of
us--yes, yes--"

"Of course they do."

"My niece Madelaine--a lighthead--dragged me to the Ritz to lunch last
week, before the wild rush cleared them off again--_Mon Dieu!_ what a
sight there in that restaurant!--Olivier and the waiters are the only
things of dignity left! The women dressed to the eyes as Red Cross
nurses. Some Americans, and, yes, French--nursing the well English
officers I must believe--no nearer wounded than that!--floating veils,
painted lips--high heels--Heavens! it filled me with rage--I who know
the devoted and good of both nations who are not seen, and you
English--. But there it is easy for you with your temperament to be
good and really work--France is full of sensible kind Americans and
English--but those in Paris--they make me sick! Quarter of an hour twice
a day--to have the right to a passport to come--and to wear a
uniform--Pah! Sick, sick!--"

I thought of the fluffies!--they too played at something the first year
of the war, but now have given up even the pretence of that.

The Duchesse was still angry.

"My nephew Charles, le Prince de Vimont, eats chicken and cutlets on the
meatless days, he told me with pride, his _maitre d'hotel_--he of the
one eye--like thou, Nicholas, is able to procure plenty on the day
before from friends in the trade, and with ice--_Mon Dieu!_--and I pay
twenty-eight francs apiece for the best poulets for my _blesses_ for
extra rations!--and ice!--impossible to procure--. Oh! I would punish
them all, choke them with their own meat--it is they who should be "food
for the guns" as you English say,--they, these few disgrace our brave
France, and make the other nations laugh at us."

I tried to assure her that no one laughed, and that we all understood
and worshipped the spirit of France, that it was only the few, and that
we were not deceived, but I could not calm her.

"It makes me weep" at last she said and I could not comfort her.

"Heloise de Tavantaine--my Cousin's Jew daughter-in-law--paid four
thousand francs for a new evening dress, which did not cover a tenth of
her fat body--Four thousand francs would have given my
_blesses_--Ah!--well--I rage, I rage."

Then she checked herself--.

"But why do I say this to thee Nicholas?--because I am sore--it is ever
thus--we are all human, and must cry to someone."

So after all there is some meaning in my journal.