But the gang was not all there, and they knew it. Some of them lay in
the Argonne, or at Chateau-Thierry, and for them peace had come too
late. But the Americans, like the rest of the world, had put the past
behind them. Here was the present, the glorious present, and Paris on a
sunny Monday. And after that would be home.
"Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
What the hell do we care?
What the hell do we care?
Hail, hail, the gang's all here,
What the hell do we care now?"
Gradually the noise became uproarious. There were no bands in Paris, and
any school-boy with a tin horn or a toy drum could start a procession.
Bearded little poilus, arm in arm from curb to curb, marched grinning
down the center of the streets, capturing and kissing pretty midinettes,
or surrounding officers and dancing madly; Audrey saw an Algerian,
ragged and dirty from the battle-fields, kiss on both cheeks a portly
British Admiral of the fleet, and was herself kissed by a French sailor,
with extreme robustness and a slight tinge of vin ordinaire. She went on
smiling.
If only Clay were seeing all this! He had worked so hard. He had a right
to this wonderful hour, at least. If he had gone to the front, to see
Graham--but then it must be rather wonderful at the front, too. She
tried to visualize it; the guns quiet, and the strained look gone from
the faces of the men, with the wonderful feeling that as there was
to-day, now there would also be to-morrow.
She felt a curious shrinking from the people she knew. For this one day
she wanted to be alone. This peace was a thing of the soul, and of the
soul alone. She knew what it would be with the people she knew best in
Paris,--hastily arranged riotous parties, a great deal of champagne
and noise, and, overlying the real sentiment, much sentimentality. She
realized, with a faint smile, that the old Audrey would have welcomed
that very gayety. She was even rather resentful with herself for her own
aloofness.
She quite forgot luncheon, and early afternoon found her on the balcony
of the Crillon Hotel, overlooking the Place de la Concorde. Paris was
truly awake by that time, and going mad. The long-quiet fountains were
playing, Poilus and American soldiers had seized captured German cannon
and were hauling them wildly about. If in the morning the crowd had been
largely khaki, now the French blue predominated. Flags and confetti were
everywhere, and every motor, as it, pushed slowly through the crowd,
carried on roof and running board and engine hood crowds of self-invited
passengers. A British band was playing near the fountain. A line of
helmets above the mass and wild cheers revealed French cavalry riding
through, and, heralded by jeers and much applause came a procession of
the proletariat, of odds and ends, soldiers and shop-girls, mechanics
and street-sweepers and cabmen and students, carrying an effigy of the
Kaiser on a gibbet.