The Daredevil | Page 5

the steering wheel of his long blue racing car, and I could
bring down a hare out of the field with any gun he possessed as
unerringly as could he. I lived his life with him hour by hour, learned to
think as he thought, to speak his easy transatlantic speech, and did
equal trencher duty with him at all times, so that muscle and brawn
were packed on my tall, broad woman's body with the same
compactness as it was packed upon his, by the time I had reached my
twenty-first birthday. By that time he and I had been alone together for
eight long years, for my mother had left us with tiny, misshapen Pierre
as a heart burden but with only each other to be companions.
The efforts of some of my mother's distant relatives and friends to
make me into the traditional young French Marquise had resulted in
giving to me a very beautiful grande dame manner to use when I stood
in need of it, which I took a care was not too often. Because I had been
born to a woman's estate I considered I must manage well beautiful
skirts and lacy fans, but no oftener than was necessary, I decided. I
went for the most of my days habited in English knickerbockers under
short corduroy skirts, worn with a many-pocketed hunting blouse. On
the night of my presentation at the salon of my distant relative, the old
Countess de Rochampierre, I had to apologize to a young Russian
attaché for searching with desperation for the bit of lace called a
handkerchief, among the laces and ruffles of my evening gown in the
regions where I had been accustomed to find sensible pockets.
"And is it possible that Mademoiselle Americaine hunts as well as she
makes the dance?" was his delighted answer to my explanation, which
led into a half-hour description of a raw morning in the field just three
days before in England, where my father and I had gone over for a
week's hunting with Lord Gordon Leigh at Leigholm.
"And then some," I returned answer with delight at his sympathy in my
narration of the sport. I liked very well the American slang that my
father's friends were always glad to teach to me, and that gave to him
both amusement and delight when I used it in his presence.
Also I liked well that young Russian and he came many times to the

Chateau de Grez and Bye before he left to join his regiment of Russian
Cossacks in the Carpathians.
And this time it was from the Carpathians that I returned to the ship
deck to find wee Pierre laughing again over the very small dog that
brought into the French trenches a very large and stupid sheep from the
flock back of the German trenches.
"And your medal of honor, Monsieur le Capitaine; is it permitted that I
lay for a little moment just one finger upon it?" Pierre asked of him as
the great soldier stood tall above the steamer chair and gave to the little
Frenchman the salute of an officer.
Nannette sobbed into her lace and I turned my head away as the tall
man bent and laid the frail little hand against his decoration which he
wore almost entirely hidden under the pocket of his tweed Norfolk of
English manufacture. Only French eyes like wee Pierre's could have
seen it pinned there hidden over his heart. I think he wore it to give him
a large courage for his mission that meant bread or starvation to so
many of his people.
"Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine," I said to him with a softness of tears in
my throat, "I would that there was some little thing that I might do to
serve France. I do so long to go into those awful trenches with that red
cross on my arm, as it is not permitted to me to carry a gun, which I can
use much better than many men now handling them with bullets against
the enemy; but it is necessary that I obey the commands of my soldier
father and take to a safety the small Pierre." And as we spoke he
walked beside me to the prow of the large ship so that to us was a view
of the heavens of blue beyond which lay our America.
"My child, there is a great service which you can render France," he
answered me as we stopped to watch the great white waves flung aside
from the ship. "France needs friends in America, great powerful friends
who will help her in contracting for food and all other munitions. A
beautiful woman can do much in winning those friends. You go to your
uncle, who