ost uncanny to see him sitting there, silent, arms folded,
shoulders hunched, sparkling eyes missing nothing. "It is true,"
mademoiselle told us earnestly, "that the tra-dee-tion says he will come
back--when France needs him--the soldiers talk of it."

"In almost every country," I said, "there is a story like that, of
heroes who will come again."

"But Napoleon, monsieur--surely he would not fail France?"

The thing that followed was inevitable. Randolph and Mademoiselle Julie
fell in love with each other. He drew her as he had drawn us at school.
She was not a Madge Ballou, mundane and mercenary; she was rather a
Heloise, a Nicolette, a Jeanne d'Arc, self-sacrificing, impassioned. She
met Randolph on equal ground. They soared together--mixed love of
country with love of lovers. They rose at dawn to worship the sun, they
walked forth at twilight to adore together the crescent moon.

And all the while war was at the gates; we could hear the boom of big
guns. The spring drive was on and the Germans were coming back.

I shall never forget the night that Randolph and I were ordered to the
front. Mademoiselle had come in with her hands full of violets.
Randolph, meeting her for the first time after a busy day, took her
hands and the frail blossoms in his eager clasp. He was an almost
perfect lover--Aucassin if you will--Abelard at his best.

"Violets," he said. "May I have three?"

"Why three, monsieur?"

"For love, mademoiselle, and truth and constancy."

He took his prayer-book from his pocket, and she gave him the violets.
He touched them to her lips, then crushed them to his own. I saw
it--sitting back in the shadows. I should never have thought of kissing
a girl like that. But it was rather wonderful.

He shut the violets in the little book.

They sat very late that night by the fire. I went in and out, not
disturbing them. I saw him kneel at her feet as he left her, and she
bent forward and kissed his forehead.

He talked of her a great deal after that. More than I would have talked
of love, but his need of an audience drove him to confidences. He felt
that he must make himself worthy of her--to go back to her as anything
less than a hero might seem to belittle her. I am not sure that he was
braver than other men, but his feeling for effect gave him a sort of
reckless courage. Applause was a part of the game--he could not do
without it.

And so came that night when a small band of us were cut off from th