glance arrives at the last visé: "Who put that on your passport?" asks the officer at the head of the line. "The British Control Office?" he says with heat. "It's none of their business." In an inner room, four more men examine my documents. "Did the British officer see this letter from the French consul?" I am asked. I nod assent. A laugh goes round the room. "Pardon, madame," says the man with the most gold braid, "the British Control Office does not control France. You are welcome to France, madame, welcome to France any time you choose to come."
That is the War Office that speaks. So, with the French Government's cordial invitation ringing pleasantly in my ears, I go on board the Channel boat. But I have no intention of returning to France right away, gentlemen. I lay out my life-preserver with a feeling of great relief that if I survive this crossing, it will not have to be done over again. And once more the boat in the darkness steals safely and silently across the Channel.
In the morning, in Southampton, the major from Salonica hands me his card: "Letters," he says, a trifle wistfully, "will always reach me at that address." I look at the card here before me on my desk as I write and I wonder. The major with his Irish smile may now be lying dead on the field of battle somewhere on the front. In the midst of life we are in death almost anywhere in the world to-day.
