ion of this purely feminine
conversation--which soon included Heloise and Mimi--the two parties
forgot the gory chasm that divided them. When they dropped suddenly at a
chance word to the present that gripped even these glittering snow
fields with its red insatiable fingers, Kate, as ever, was equal to the
formidable moment and cried out, snapping her fingers at the blue ether
so tranquilly aloof from warring hosts:

"Forget it! For to-day, at least. What are you thinking about so hard,
Ann?"

"I'll tell you later. Let us go in and have tea and then skate again. I
noticed how well my step suited Countess Gisela's."

Ann Howland, as the wife of an eminent politician, had long since
cultivated the art of mental suppleness and had learned to fascinate the
most diverse intelligences and egos. Gisela, who was always warmly
responsive to personal charm when not too obviously insincere, enjoyed
the hour on the ice so exclusively devoted to her by the distinguished
American and went to bed that night well content to bury the war during
this period of necessary rest, grateful for this fresh current that
swept her for the moment into one of those old backwaters of mere
femininity. Mrs. Prentiss had not related a single anecdote of the
front, nor alluded to the fact that she was a Red Cross nurse.

But she and Kate Terriss sat up until midnight. They were both women
capable of seizing those rare opportunities for service that flit past
so many intelligent women lacking initiative, and here was one that the
most clear-thinking man would have envied. It was a piece of
unbelievable luck; Gisela Doering was not only here to their hand in a
relaxed and friendly mood, but she possessed charm combined with a
great intelligence and an iron will: she was far more the obvious leader
than they had inferred from her work, and they guessed something of the
powerful influence she must quietly have obtained over the women of
Germany. Mrs. Prentiss had by no means approved of her at an earlier
period, for she had shrewdly suspected that it was the handsome German
governess, not the high-born Irma, who thwarted her designs upon the
most attractive "foreigner" she had ever met. But even if she had
cherished a grudge, and her life had been far too happy and successful
for that, she would have been so profoundly grateful to Gisela for
saving her from the anomalous and wretched position of other modern
American women married to medieval Germans, t