leave. Would she, therefore, tell him what things in Paris were the most
interesting and in what order he had best take them? She replied with
another suggestion; why not, she said, ask for permission for England?
This would give him two weeks instead of seventy-two hours. At this he
burst out violently that he would not set foot in England; that he never
wanted to have anything to do with England or with the English: "Why, I
am a marine!" he exclaimed, "and we marines would sooner knock down any
English sailor than speak to him."

The English lady, naturally, did not then tell him her nationality. She
now realized that he had supposed her to be American, because she had
frequently been in America and had talked to him as no stranger to the
country could. She, of course, did not urge his going to England; she
advised him what to see in France. He took his leave of seventy-two hours
and when he returned was very grateful for the advice she had given him.

She saw him often after this, and he grew to rely very much upon her
friendly counsel. Finally, when the time came for her to go away from
Brest, she told him that she was English. And then she said something
like this to him:

"Now, you told me you had never been in England and had never known an
English person in your life, and yet you had all these ideas against us
because somebody had taught you wrong. It is not at all your fault. You
are only nineteen years old and you cannot read about us, because you
have no chance; but at least you do know one English person now, and that
English person begs you, when you do have a chance to read and inform
yourself of the truth, to find out what England really has been, and what
she has really done in this war."