"THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS."

_Mrs. Dowey_ (actually a virgin spinster), felt herself out of it because
she had no son at the Front to talk about. I gathered that it was not so
much a case of unsatisfied yearning for motherhood, as that she wanted to
hold her own with the other charwomen who were represented in the trenches.
So she assumed the relationship of an anonymous _marraine_ towards a
certain unknown namesake in the Black Watch, and made boastful pretence of
having received letters from her son.

Suddenly she is confronted with this _Private Dowey_, home on leave--a
lonely soldier with no family ties. The joy that she had taken in her
imagined sense of proprietorship is dashed by fear of exposure and of
possible resentment on his part. At first he treats her intrusion almost
brutally, but is soon mollified by the offer of food and other hospitality;
and by the time his leave is up he has developed an almost filial regard
for her. Their parting is as the parting of a tender-hearted mother and a
rather unemotional son. The pathos of this scene, though designed and
interpreted with a very sensitive restraint, was comparatively obvious--a
commonplace, indeed, of these heart-rending days. There was a far more
subtle and original note of pathos in the contrast between the brusque
humour of the man's casual acceptance of the situation and the timorous,
adoring, dog-like devotion of the woman. Here tears and laughter were never
far apart.

I could wish that the impression left by this picture had not been a little
spoiled by the final scene, in which she lingers lovingly over the medals
and uniform of the dead soldier. No good purpose, dramatic or other, was
served by this gratuitous appendage to a finished work of art.