“You are sure she had no disillusion?” asked the Critic.

“I am,” said the Nurse.

“And her name was Josephine?” asked the Divorcee.

“It was not, and Utica was not the town,” replied the Nurse.

“Perhaps her disillusion is ahead of her,” said the Journalist. “’Say no man’—­or woman either—­’is happy until the day of his death.’”

“She is dead,” said the Nurse.

“I told you she was lucky little Josephine,” ejaculated the Doctor.

“And she died without telling the boy the truth?” asked the Journalist.

“The truth?” repeated the Nurse.  “I’ve told you that she had forgotten it.  No woman was ever so loved by a son.  No mother ever so grieved for.”

“Then the son lives?” asked the Doctor.

The Nurse smiled quietly.

“Good-night,” said the Doctor.  “I am going to bed to dream of that.  It is a pity some of the rest of us childless slackers had not done as well as Josephine.  She took her risk.  She was lucky.”

“She did,” replied the Nurse, “but she did not realize anything of that.  She was too simple, too unanalytic.”

“I wonder?” said the Critic.

“You need not, I know.”  Her eyes fell on the Lawyer, and she caught a laugh in his eye.  “What does that mean?” she asked.

“Well,” said the Lawyer, “I was only thinking.  She was religious, that dear little Josephine?”

“At least she always went to church.”

“I know the type,” said the Violinist, gently.  “Accepted what she was taught, believed it.”

“Exactly,” said the Lawyer, “that is what I was getting at.  Well then, when her son meets her au dela—­he will ask for his father—­”

“Or,” interrupted the Violinist, “his own mother will claim him.”

“Don’t worry,” laughed the Critic.  “It’s dollars to doughnuts that she was ‘dear little Josephine’ to all the Heavenly Host half an hour after she entered the ‘gates of pearl.’  Don’t look shocked.  That is not sacrilegious.  It is intentions—­motives, that are immortal, not facts.  Besides—­”

“Don’t push that idea too far,” interrupted the Doctor from the door.

“Don’t be alarmed.  I was only going to say—­there are Ik Marvels au dela—­”

“I knew that idea was in your head.  Drop it!” laughed the Doctor.

“Anyway,” said the Violinist, “if Life is but a dream, she had a pretty one.  Good night.”  And he went up to bed, and we all soon followed him, and I imagine not one of us, as we looked out into the moonlit air, thought that night of war.

III

THE CRITIC’S STORY

’TWAS IN THE INDIAN SUMMER

THE TALE OF AN ACTRESS

The next day, just as we were sitting down to dinner, the news came that Namur had fallen.  The German army had marched singing into the burning town the afternoon before.  The Youngster had his head over a map almost all through dinner.  The Belgians were practically pushed out of all but Antwerp, and the Germans were rapidly approaching the natural defences of France running from Lille to Verdun, through Valenciennes, Mauberge, Hirson and Mezieres.