She may have been twenty-eight, certainly not over thirty, but she had only one front tooth.  It was a very large tooth and it stuck straight out.  Her lips were painted an energetic vermillion.  Her mouth too was large, and it spread across her dead white (and homely) face like a malignant sore.  She smiled constantly—­it was her role to be gracious to all these duchesses and ambassadresses—­and that solitary tooth darted forward like a sentinel on a bridge in the War Zone.  But I envied her.  She was so happy.  So important.  I never met anybody who made me feel so insignificant.

II

Madame d’Haussonville naturally suggests to the chronicler the sharpest sort of contrasts.

I am told that she devoted herself to the world until the age of fifty, and she wielded a power and received a measure of adulation from both sexes that made her the most formidable social power in France.  But the De Broglies are a serious family, as their record in history proves.  Madame d’Haussonville, without renouncing her place in the world of fashion, devoted herself more and more to good works, her superior brain and executive abilities forcing her from year to year into positions of heavier responsibility.

I was told that she was now seventy; but she is a woman whose personality is so compelling that she rouses none of the usual vulgar curiosity as to the number of years she may have lingered on this planet.  You see Madame d’Haussonville as she is and take not the least interest in what she may have been during the years before you happened to meet her.

Very tall and slender and round and straight, her figure could hardly have been more perfect at the age of thirty.  The poise of her head is very haughty and the nostril of her fine French nose is arched and thin.  She wears no make-up whatever, and, however plainly she may feel it her duty to dress in these days, her clothes are cut by a master and an excessively modern one at that; there is none of the Victorian built-up effect, to which our own grandes dames cling as to the rock of ages, about Madame d’Haussonville.  Her waist line is in its proper place—­she does not go to the opposite extreme and drag it down to her knees—­and one feels reasonably sure that it will be there at the age of ninety—­presupposing that the unthinkable amount of hard work she accomplishes daily during this period of her country’s crucifixion shall not have devoured the last of her energies long before she is able to enter the peaceful haven of old age.

She is in her offices at the Red Cross headquarters in the Rue Francois I’er early and late, leaving them only to visit hospitals or sit on some one of the innumerable committees where her advice is imperative, during the organizing period at least.

Some time ago I wrote to Madame d’Haussonville, asking her if she would dictate a few notes about her work in the Red Cross, and as she wrote a very full letter in reply, I cannot do better than quote it, particularly as it gives a far more comprehensive idea of her personality than any words of mine.