“Haven’t you heard—­haven’t you heard?” she asked.  And we knew instinctively that something had happened to the Gilded Youth.  And when one is in aviation something happening always is serious.  It was Henry’s kind voice that conveyed our sympathy to her.  And she told us of the accident.  Two mornings before, while making his first flight alone, from the training camp near Paris, something went wrong with his engine while he was but a thousand feet in the air—­and over Neuilly.  He had to glide down, and being over a town he could not make a landing.  They took him from the wreck of his plane, to the hospital near by—­fortunately an American Red Cross Hospital, where the people recognized him and sent for his aunt.  All day and all night he had lain unconscious, and at noon had opened his eyes for a minute to find his aunt beside him.  “I brought with me,” said Auntie, in a tone so significantly casual that it arrested our attention before she added, “that capable young nurse, the first assistant—­” As she spoke she caught Henry’s eyes and held him from looking at me.

“You mean the one—­” said Henry in a tone quite as casual as Auntie’s while giving eye for eye.

“Yes, your pretty mid-western girl.  She is with him now.”  Then Auntie lost Henry’s eyes as tears brimmed into her own.  “It has been twenty-six hours since we arrived at Neuilly.  I shall return in an hour, and—­”

“I wish,” cried Henry, “I wish there was something we could do!”

Auntie caught our embarrassed desire to be of service yet not to assume.  Her strong fine face lighted with something kind enough for a smile, as she answered:  “Couldn’t you go out and see him?  I think no one else in Paris would be more welcome than you two!”

That puzzled us.  She saw us looking our question at each other, and went on:  “Life means more to him now than it ever has meant.”  She really smiled as she quoted:  “’It means intensely and it means good!’” Auntie’s tired eyes gathered us in again.  “When you left Landrecourt last month he told me much about the voyage over here on the Espagne.”  The tired eyes left us to follow the crippled elevator boy who went pegging down the corridor as she continued:  “about his days in Paris before he went back to his ambulance unit; about his meeting you that night near Douaumont,—­at the first aid post and—­and I know,” she paused a second, pulled herself together and continued gently.  “We must face things as they are.  The boy’s hours in this earth are short.  He has other friends here, of course—­old friends, but you—­” again she stopped.  “You will appreciate why when you see him.”

So we gave up the poor travesty upon life that we should have seen behind the footlights for a glimpse into one of life’s real dramas.