white burnous and flowing robes
padded in soft shoes between the little crowds of cocottes who smiled
into his grave face with its dark liquid eyes and pointed beard, like
Othello the Moor. Senegalese and Turcos with rolling eyes and
wreathed smiles sat at the tables in the Cafe de la Paix, paying
extravagantly for their fire-water, and exalted by this luxury of life
after the muddy hell of the trenches and the humid climate which
made them cough consumptively between their gusts of laughter.
Here and there a strange uniform of unusual gorgeousness made
all men turn their heads with a "Qui est ca?" such as the full dress
uniform of a dandy flight officer of cardinal red from head to foot,
with a golden wing on his sleeve. The airman of ordinary grade had
no such magnificence, yet in his black leather jacket and blue breeches
above long boots was the hero of the streets and might claim any
woman's eyes, because he belonged to a service which holds the
great romance of the war, risking his life day after day on that miracle
of flight which has not yet staled in the imagination of the crowd,
and winging his way god-like above the enemy's lines, in the roar
of their pursuing shells.

Khaki came to Paris, too, and although it was worn by many who did
not hold the King's commission but swaggered it as something in the
Red Cross--God knows what!--the drab of its colour gave a thrill to all
those people of Paris who, at least in the first months of the war, were
stirred with an immense sentiment of gratitude because England had
come to the rescue in her hour of need, and had given her blood
generously to France, and had cemented the Entente Cordiale with
deathless ties of comradeship. "Comme ils sont chics, ces braves
anglais!" They did not soon tire of expressing their admiration for the
"chic" style of our young officers, so neat and clean-cut and
workmanlike, with their brown belts and brown boots, and khaki riding
breeches.

"Ulloh... Engleesh boy? Ahlright, eh?" The butterfly girls hovered
about them, spread their wings before those young officers from the
front and those knights of the Red Cross, tempted them with all their
wiles, and led them, too many of them, to their mistress Circe, who
put her spell upon them.

At every turn in the street, or under the trees of Paris, some queer
little episode, some startling figure from the great drama of the war
arrested the interest of a wondering spectator. A glimpse of trage