It was the man in the white jacket, and with that wonderful tangle of black whiskers, like a patch cut out of a scrub forest.

“Well, my young Yankee,” he said, “I see that you’ve come around.  You’ve raised an interesting question in my mind.  Since a cavalry horse wasn’t able to break it, is the American skull thicker than the skulls of other people?”

“A lot of you Europeans don’t seem to think we’re civilized.”

“But when you fight for us we do.  Isn’t that so, Mademoiselle Lannes?”

“I think it is.”

“War is a curious thing.  While it drives people apart it also brings them together.  We learn in battle, and its aftermath, that we’re very much alike.  And now, my young Yankee, I’ll be here again in two hours to change that bandage for the last time.  I’ll be through with you then, and in another day you can go forward to meet the German shells.”

“I prefer to run against a horse’s knee,” said John with spirit.

Surgeon Lucien Delorme laughed heartily.

“I’m confirmed in my opinion that you won’t need me after another change of bandages,” he said.  “We’ve a couple of hundred thousand cases much worse than yours to tend, and Mademoiselle Lannes will look after you today.  She has watched over you, I understand, because you’re a friend of her brother, the great flying man, Philip Lannes.”

“Yes,” said John, “that’s it, of course.”

Julie herself said nothing.

Surgeon Delorme passed through the bar of brilliant light and disappeared, his place being taken by a gigantic figure with grizzled hair, and the stern face of the thoughtful peasant, the same Antoine Picard who had been left as a guardian over the little house beyond the Seine.  John closed his eyes, that is nearly, and caught the glance that the big man gave to Julie.  It was protecting and fatherly, and he knew that Antoine would answer for her at any time with his life.  It was one remnant of feudalism to which he did not object.  He opened his eyes wide and said: 

“Well, my good Picard, perhaps you thought you were going to look at a dead American, but you are not.  Behold me!”

He sat up and doubled up his arm to show his muscle and power.  Picard smiled and offered to shake hands in the American fashion.  He seemed genuinely glad that John had returned to the real world, and John ascribed it to Picard’s knowledge that he was Lannes’ friend.

Julie said some words to Picard, and with a little au revoir to John, went away.  John watched her until she was out of sight.  He realized again that young French girls were kept secluded from the world, immured almost.  But the world had changed.  Since a few men met around a table six or seven weeks before and sent a few dispatches a revolution had come.  Old customs, old ideas and old barriers were going fast, and might be going faster.  War, the leveler, was prodigiously at work.