He couldn't
idly stand by and see that happen! He thought of all that France had
given him, all that France meant to him. The faces of all those
comrades of the Quartier rose before him; and gently, wistfully
appealing, the sweet face of little lost Denise. He packed his
paintings finished and unfinished, and went to tell his friend the
cure farewell, bending his pagan knees to receive the old man's
blessing. The cure, too, was part of that which is the spirit of
France.
They were enlisting in the Quartier. Peter was one of very many.
When the preliminaries were passed and he had put on the uniform of
a private soldier of the republic, he felt rather a fool. He wasn't
in the least enthusiastic. There was a thing to be done, and he
meant to help in its accomplishment; but he wasn't going to shout
over it or pretend that he liked doing it.
When he went to tell Mrs. Hemingway good-by, just before his
regiment left, she put her arms around him and kissed him. She was
going to stay in Paris, and Emma Campbell would stay in her house.
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