Julie often joined him in these tasks, and John did not remonstrate, knowing that work and occupation kept a mind healthy.  Wrapped in her great red cloak and wearing the smallest pair of high boots that he could find in the lodge, she often shoveled snow with him, as he increased the number of runways to the small outlying buildings, or to other parts of their domain.  Thus they filled up the hours and prevented the suspense which otherwise would have been acute, despite their comfortable house.

She continually revealed herself to him now.  The shell that encloses a young French girl had been broken by the hammer of war and she had stepped forth, a woman with a thinking and reasoning mind of uncommon power.  It seemed often to John that the soul of the great Lannes had descended upon this slender maid who was of his own blood.  Like many another American, he had thought often of those marshals of Napoleon who had risen from obscurity to such heights, and of them all, the republican and steadfast Lannes had been his favorite.  Her spirit was the same.  He found in it a like simplicity and courage.  They seldom talked of the war, but when they did she expressed unbounded faith in the final triumph of her nation and of those allied with it.

“I have read what the world was saying of France,” she said one day when they stood together on the snowy slope.  “We hear, we girls, although we are mostly behind the walls.  They have told us that we were declining as a nation, and many of our own people believed it.”

“The charge will never be made again against the French Republic,” said John.  “The French, by their patience and courage in the face of preliminary defeat and their dauntless resolution, have won the admiration of all the world.”

“And many Americans are fighting for us.  Tell me, John, why did you join our armies?”

“An accident first, as you know.  There was that meeting with your brother at the Austrian border, and my appearance in the apparent role of a spy, and then my great sympathy with the French, who I thought and still think were attacked by a powerful and prepared enemy bent upon their destruction.  Then I thought and still think that France and England represent democracy against absolutism, and then, although every one of these reasons is powerful enough alone, yet another has influenced me strongly.”

“And what is that other, John?”

“It’s intangible, Julie.  It has been weighed and measured by nearly all the great philosophers, but I don’t think any two of them have ever agreed about the result.”

“You are a philosopher, sir, too, are you not?  How do you define it?”

“I don’t know that I’ve arrived at any conclusion.”

“And yet, John, I thought that you were a man of decision.”

“That’s irony, Julie.  But men of decision perhaps are puzzled by it more than anybody else.”

“Then you can neither describe it nor give it a name?”