I do not think Madame Waddington has ever been wealthy in our sense of the word.  But, as I said before, her career is a striking example of that most precious of all gifts, personality.  And if she lives until ninety she will always be in social demand, for she is what is known as “good company.”  She listens to you but you would far rather listen to her.  Unlike many women of distinguished pasts she lives in hers very little.  It is difficult to induce the reminiscent mood.  She lives intensely in the present and her mind works insatiably upon everything in current life that is worth while.

She has no vanity.  Unlike many ladies of her age and degree in Paris she does not wear a red-brown wig, but her own abundant hair, as soft and white as cotton and not a “gray” hair in it.  She is now too much absorbed in the war to waste time at her dressmakers or even to care whether her placket-hole is open or not.  I doubt if she ever did care much about dress or “keeping young,” for those are instincts that sleep only in the grave.  War or no war they are as much a part of the daily habit as the morning bath.  I saw abundant evidence of this immortal fact in Paris during the second summer of the war.

Nevertheless, the moment Madame Waddington enters a room she seems to charge it with electricity.  You see no one else and you are impatient when others insist upon talking.  Vitality, an immense intelligence without arrogance or self-conceit, a courtesy which has no relation to diplomatic caution, a kindly tact and an unmistakable integrity, combine to make Madame Waddington one of the most popular women in Europe.

II

This brings me to Madame Waddington’s fourth career.  The war which has lifted so many people out of obscurity, rejuvenated a few dying talents, and given thousands their first opportunity to be useful, simply overwhelmed Madame Waddington with hard work and a multitude of new duties.  If she had indulged in dreams of spending the rest of her days in the peaceful paths of literature when not dining out, they were rudely dissipated on August 1st, 1914.

Madame Waddington opened the Ouvroir Holophane on the 15th of August, her first object being to give employment and so countercheck the double menace of starvation and haunted idleness for at least fifty poor women:  teachers, music-mistresses, seamstresses, lace makers, women of all ages and conditions abruptly thrown out of work.

Madame Waddington, speaking of them, said:  “We had such piteous cases of perfectly well-dressed, well-educated, gently-bred women that we hardly dared offer them the one-franc-fifty and ‘gouter’ (bowl of cafe-au-lait with bread and butter), which was all we were able to give for four hours’ work in the afternoon.”

However, those poor women were very thankful for the work and sewed faithfully on sleeping-suits and underclothing for poilus in the trenches and hospitals.  Madame Waddington’s friends in America responded to her call for help and M. Mygatt gave her rooms on the ground floor of his building in the Boulevard Haussmann.