at last we moved out of the station.

The long train crept, stopped, backed, crept on again. Through the open
windows one caught glimpses of rows of poplar-trees and the countryside
lying cool and white in the moonlight. Then came stations with
sentries, stray soldiers hunting for a place to squeeze in, and now and
then empty troop-trains jolted by, smelling of horses. In the confusion
at Dieppe we had had no time to get anything to eat, and several hours
went by before, at a station lunchroom, already supposed to be closed, I
got part of a loaf of bread. One of the young mothers brought out a bit
of chocolate, the other a bottle of wine, and so we had supper--a souper
de luxe, as one of them laughed--all, by this time, old friends.

Eleven o'clock--midnight--the gas, intended for a short journey, grew
dimmer and dimmer, presently flickered out. We were in darkness--all
the train was in darkness--we were alone in France, wrapped in war and
moonlight, half real beings who had been adventuring together, not for
hours, but for years. The dim figure on the left sighed, tried one
position and another uneasily, and suddenly said that if it would not
derange monsieur too much, she would try to sleep on his shoulder. It
would not derange monsieur in the least. On the contrary...

"You must make yourself at home in France," laughed the mother of the
two little girls. But the other was even more polite.

"Nous sommes en Amerique!" she murmured. The train jolted slowly on. An
hour or two after midnight it stopped and a strange figure in turban and
white robe peered in. "Complet! Complet!" cried the lady with the
little girls. But the figure kept staring in, and, turning, chattered
to others like him. There was a crowd of them, men from France's