Dona Luisa observed her in the church with an almost indignant jealousy.  Her headstrong child’s eyes were moist, and she was praying as fervently as the mother . . . but it was surely not for her brother.  Julio had passed to second place in her remembrance.  Another man was now completely filling her thoughts.

The last of the Lacours was no longer a simple soldier, nor was he now in Paris.  Upon her return from Biarritz, Chichi had listened anxiously to the reports from her little sugar soldier.  Throbbing with eagerness, she wanted to know all about the dangers which he had been experiencing; and the young warrior “in the auxiliary service” told her of his restlessness in the office during the interminable days in which the troops were battling around Paris, hearing afar off the boom of the artillery.  His father had wished to take him with him to Bordeaux, but the administrative confusion of the last hour had kept him in the capital.

He had done something more.  On the day of the great crisis, when the acting governor had sent out all the available men in automobiles, he had, unasked, seized a gun and occupied a motor with others from his office.  He had not seen anything more than smoke, burning houses, and wounded men.  Not a single German had passed before his eyes, excepting a band of Uhlan prisoners, but for some hours he had been shooting on the edge of the road . . . and nothing more.

For a while, that was enough for Chichi.  She felt very proud to be the betrothed of a hero of the Marne, even though his intervention had lasted but a few hours.  In a few days, however, her enthusiasm became rather clouded.

It was becoming annoying to stroll through the streets with Rene, a simple soldier and in the auxiliary service, besides. . . .  The women of the town, excited by the recollection of their men fighting at the front, or clad in mourning because of the death of some loved one, would look at them with aggressive insolence.  The refinement and elegance of the Republican Prince seemed to irritate them.  Several times, she overheard uncomplimentary words hurled against the “embusques.”

The fact that her brother who was not French was in the thick of the fighting, made the Lacour situation still more intolerable.  She had an “embusque” for a lover.  How her friends would laugh at her! . . .

The senator’s son soon read her thoughts and began to lose some of his smiling serenity.  For three days he did not present himself at the Desnoyers’ home, and they all supposed that he was detained by work at the office.

One morning as Chichi was going toward the Bois de Boulogne, escorted by one of the nut-brown maids, she noticed a soldier coming toward her.  He was wearing a bright uniform of the new gray-blue, the “horizon blue” just adopted by the French army.  The chin strap of his kepi was gilt, and on his sleeve there was a little strip of gold.  His smile, his outstretched hands, the confidence with which he advanced toward her made her recognize him.  Rene an officer!  Her betrothed a sub-lieutenant!