24 
LAND & WATER 
November i6, 191 6 
PRESIDENT WILSON 
This remarkable bust of President V\'ilson is the work of Mr. Jo 
Davidson, one of America's cleverest sculptors. Mr. Davidson's 
work is well-kno»n in this country, his bust of Joseph Conrad being 
perhaps his best known and most remarkable achievement over here. 
{Continued from page 22) 
brilliant streets. She closed her eyes suddenly and sank u')on 
her knees, laying reverently the two sou buncii of \iolets upon 
the unliowered earthy surface. Tlie violets softened a 
relentless line. 
In kneeling she took possession of the grave. Perhaps 
Jean Beret, forgotten, laid away, had known that she would 
find him. He must have been a "brave honest-faced little 
soldier in a bright uniform. Once, long ago, in a far away 
\-illage, she had seen such a young' man and he had smiled 
at her. Jean Beret smiled so now, and smiling, mysterioaslv 
too;< her by the hand. Why should he not belong to her ' " 
She knelt in a young ecstasy of dreams. telMng 
herself a beautiful story. She had known Jean Beret in a 
village. He had loved her and they had walked tof^ether 
thrvmgh spicy fields, she leaning on his arm. Then she had 
i-one away, and he had waited for her to come back until 
the war. He marched away with the others. Now he was 
dead and she had found him. ■ 
Aiarie Soldi stumbled to her feet and went with the rest, 
cariymg securely, enfolded in a new, a reverent radiance' 
her ihusion, telling herself over and over again the story of 
Jean Beret's love. 
The concierge standing in the doorway of the house, nodded 
in a condescending way. 
■' You went to tlie cemetery, Mademoiselle ?" 
Then Marie Soleil said : " I went to visit the grave of my 
fiance, he was killed at Charleroi." 
" Your fianci " cried the concierge, hastening after Marie 
Solcil and detaining her. " I never knew. . . " 
Marie answered quietly : " Why should you know - " 
The concierge bobbed uj) and down with undisguised 
curiosity. " Well, well, you surprise me nevertheless So 
the poor boy is dead. You should have told me." 
To think of it," fussed the concierge. " My poor little 
one. Ah, it is only those who lose a man whoknow " 
" He was bra%-e," chanted Marie Soleil. " 'Hiey decorated 
him on the field of battle. He would surely have been an 
oflicer." 
•'Like my brother's boy," eagerly ecnoed the concierge 
" There was a fine fellow for you. Would you beliexe it 
Mademoiselle, he, too, is gone," she started sniffing, " these are 
bad days. How will they end ? " 
Now the concierge told her friends, told the little shop- 
keepers in the street, told the ancient tenants of the old 
house, and even the postman, about Marie Soleil's fiance, 
and every time the story was told, the fiance became braver! 
more beautiful. There were many who envied Marie Soleil' . 
Some said that she was sly, others that she could not have 
been a good girl, while others watched her pass with murmured • 
sympathy and kindliness. Her little rusty black -figure no 
longer shpped by unperceived. In the street she was pl.tced 
foremost and romantically .among those who mourned, com- 
paring grief. 
But unheeding them, she lived with her illusion become 
reality. She was hungry, but that did not matter. Surely 
Jean Beret has suffered greater hungqr than she. She was 
shabby, nor did that matter. For surely Jean Buret's bright 
uniform had grown bedraggled and torn on that last battle- 
field. She heard as echoes the distant guns, the hollow noise 
of cannons, the roar of contending masses. .And all ttie armies 
were one face — the face of Jean Boret. 
Each soldier met along the higiiways seemed Jean Beret's 
brother going out to avenge his dead, her dead. There were 
no strangers to whom she could not speak of him. 
Twice a week she went to 1 i e La Chaise. 
There upon the frozen ground, she knelt beside his abidin,' 
place. She talked to him of all that was going on, the. daily 
news of trenches won and lost, of battles in the North and 
West, of pallid faces seen and messages that made p.()>le 
kin. 
I am glad that you are here to stay," she waispered. 
" .\t least you are not lying out there unclaimed." 
Her face grew withered with cold. Her cape flapped like a 
moulting black wing in the sharp winds. Her snoes w.^re 
worn with climbing the hiU. But she was happy. 
" You look tired, Mile.," the concierge often said. " Wiiy 
do you not join me and my friends and sit with us and kiiit. 
1 will make you tea," for the concierge had adopted a 
motherly attitude towards Marie Soleil. 
y I am not tired . . . never tired." 
The day came thougli, when she could not afford to buy 
a two sou bunch of violets. But there were scraps of coloured 
paper left, remnants of her work in other days. So s.tting 
beside the narrow window, perched high under the slanting 
roof, she twisted the paper into beautiful flowers. Sne 
made two red rosi^i and a golden chrysanthemum. 
She hoped it would not rain the day she took them to Jean 
Beret. The afternoon was crisp and blue, such a locking 
blue of sky and stone as froze the city of the sky, and gavj 
the great bells a cracked clang. 
As she drew near Jean Beret's grave beneath the withered 
bush she saw what looked like an iiikspot, and took form only 
. w.Ven she paused to catch her breath. 
A stranger swathed in crap.-, with hidden face, stood 
, staring down. She looked so tall in the blue light, that her 
long black veil seemed hooked and trailing from the topmost 
claw of a branch. Her heavy outline stamped against sur- 
■ rounding stone and earth hovered top heavily over the quiet 
mound. 
She never moved. 
Tiiere was somsthing about the motionless broodin,' pose 
of this stranger that terrified Marie Sol;-il. .\n unkno.v.i and 
; fine pain pricked her heart, but she went forward, clasping 
; the paper roses, and without another look to right or left, 
knelt passionately devout, placing the roses on tne grave. 
A hostile stillness froze her to the spot, as witn bowed 
head she tried to summon Jean Beret to the rescue. 
_ fiut the spirit of Jean I3.>ret never moved. Suddenly a 
■ high voice intruded. 
I "I beg your pardon. Madam ■, but d;d you k.i ).v m ,- 
husband ? " 
Marie Soleil stumbled to her feet, enfolding her meagre 
cape protectingly around her soulders. " Your husband ? " 
• she repeated stupidly. 
The stranger darted a haughty, suspicious glance. Slic 
was impressive and unpleasant. 
The red roses burnt upon the grave. She waved towards 
them. " I wanted to know whom to thank for th^se," she 
said. 
Marie Soleil was dazed, as dazed as though the sky had 
cracked, and scattered at her feet violent armies in lust of battle, 
as if the world had crumbled, or Jean Beret, an old man, had 
risen from his shroud accusingly. 
She could not speak. 
" I got here as soon as I could," said the woman, never 
taking her eyes from Marie Soleil. " Perhaps you were his 
nurse ? " 
Marie shook her head. 
" But you knew him ? " persisted the woman. 
At last, she answered, carefully handhng her small voice. 
" Long ago." 
Jean Beret's wife stared suspiciously ; " He never told 
me . . ." 
Marie Soleil, however, lifted her head : " Perhaps he 
forgot." she said. 
" Well, 1 thank you for the flowers. Or would you like 
to take them back ? " 
Marie Soleil shook her head, then without looking again at 
the grave, desolately turned away. 
The woman in crape stood like a sentinel, while Jean Beret's 
promised one crept down the hill alone. 
