“And why does madame laugh?” he asked, trying to keep a sober face himself.

“Well,” I replied, “I am only wondering if that is your battle array?”

“Certainly,” he answered.  “Why does it surprise you?”

I looked as serious as I could, as I explained that I had supposed, naturally, that the cavalry went into action as lightly equipped as possible.

He looked really indignant, as he snapped:  “That would be quite unnatural.  What do you suppose that Peppino and I are going to do after a battle?  Wait for the commissary department to find us?  No, madame, after a battle it will not be of my mother nor home, nor even of you, that we will be thinking.  We shall think of something to eat and drink.”  Then he added, with a laugh, “Alas!  We shan’t have all these nice things you have given us.  They will have been eaten by tomorrow.”

I apologized, and said I’d know better another time, and he patted his horse, as he backed away, and said to him:  “Salute the lady, Peppino, and tell her prettily that you had the honor of carrying Teddy Roosevelt the day he went to the review.”  And the horse pawed and bowed and neighed, and his rider wheeled him carefully as he saluted and said:  “Au revoir, I shall write, and, after the war, I shall give myself the pleasure of seeing you,” and he rode carefully out of the gate—­a very delicate operation, as only half of it was open.  Laden as the horse was, he just made it, and away he galloped down the hill to Voisins, where the cavalry was assembling.

I stayed in the window a few minutes to wave a goodbye to the men as they led each their three horses down the hill.  Then I put on my heaviest coat, a polo cap, all my furs and mittens, thrust my felt shoes into my sabots, and with one hand in my muff, I took the big French flag in the other and went through the snow down to the hedge to watch the regiment pass, on the road to Esbly.

Even before I got out of the house the news came that the 118th Regiment of infantry, the boys who retook Vaux in the great battle at Verdun, had been marching in from Meaux, and were camped, waiting to take up the billets the 23d Dragoons were vacating.

I stood in the snow for nearly half an hour, holding up the heavy flag, which flapped bravely in the icy wind, and watching the long grey line moving slowly along the road below.  I could see half a mile of the line —­grey, steel-helmeted men, packed horses, grey wagons—­winding down the hill in the winter landscape, so different from the France I had always known.  Hardly a sound came back—­no music, no colors—­ the long, grey column moved in a silent, almost colorless world.  I shifted the heavy flag from one hand to the other as my fingers got stiff, but, alas!  I could not shift my feet.  Long before the line had passed I was forced to fasten the flag to a post in the hedge and leave it to float by itself, and limp into the house.  As a volunteer color-bearer I was a failure.  I had to let Amelie take off my shoes and rub my feet, and I had hard work not to cry while she was doing it.  I was humiliated, especially as I remembered that the boys had a five hours’ march as their first etape, and a bivouac at the end of it.