Wharton resumed his novel, Carstairs, sitting on one end of a rude
wooden bench, began a game of solitaire, and John, at the other end,
gave himself over to dreaming, which the regulated thunder of many
cannon did not disturb at all.
It had been months now since he had parted with Philip and Julie Lannes.
He had seen Philip twice since, but Julie not at all When the German
army made a successful stand near the river Aisne, and both sides went
into trenches, Lannes had come in the _Arrow_ and, in reply to John's
restrained but none the less eager questions, had said that Julie was
safe in Paris again with her mother, Antoine Picard and the faithful
Suzanne. She had wanted to return to the front as a Red Cross nurse,
but Madame Lannes would not let her go.
A month later he saw Lannes again and Julie was still in the capital,
but he inferred from Philip's words rather than his tone that she was
impatient. Thousands of French girls were at the front, attending to the
wounded, and sharing hardship and danger. John knew that Julie had a
will like her brother's and he believed that, in time, she would surely
come again to the battle lines.
The thought made him smile, and he felt a light glow pass over his face.
He knew it was due to the belief that he would see Julie once more, and
yet the trenches now extended about four hundred miles across Northern
France and Belgium.
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