Chapter 11

"There are more women than those in Belgium who are being swept over by
the chariots of war and trampled on by marching feet," the Duchess of
Darte said to a group of her women friends on a certain afternoon.

The group had met to work and some one had touched on a woeful little
servant-maid drama which had painfully disclosed itself in her
household. A small, plain kitchen maid had "walked out" in triumphant
ecstasy with a soldier who, a few weeks after bidding her good-bye, had
been killed in Belgium. She had been brought home to her employer's
house by a policeman who had dragged her out of the Serpentine. An old
story had become a modern one. In her childish ignorance and terror of
her plight she had seen no other way, but she had not had courage to
face more than very shallow water, with the result of finding herself
merely sticking in the mud and wailing aloud.

"The policeman was a kind-hearted, sensible fellow," said the relator of
the incident. "He had a family of his own and what he said was 'She
looked such a poor little drowned rat of a thing I couldn't make up my
mind to run her in, ma'am. This 'ere war's responsible for a lot more
than what the newspapers tell about. Young chaps in uniform having to
brace up and perhaps lying awake in the night thinking over what the
evening papers said--and young women they've been sweet-heartin'
with--they get wild, in a way, and cling to each other and feel
desperate--and he talks and she cries--and he may have his head blown
off in a week's time. And who wonders that there's trouble.' Do you know
he actually told me that there were a number of girls he was keeping a
watch on. He said he'd begun to recognise a certain look in their eyes
when they walked alone in the park. He said it was a 'stark, frightened
look.' I didn't know what he meant, but it gave me a shudder."

"I think I know," said the Duchess. "Poor, wretched children! There
ought to be a sort of moratorium in the matter of social laws. The old
rules don't hold. We are facing new conditions. This is a thing for
women to take in hand, practically, as they are taking in hand other
work. It must be done absolutely without prejudice. There is no time to
lecture or condemn or even deplore. There is only time to try to heal
wounds and quiet maddening pain and save life."

Lady Lothwell took the subject up.

"In the country places and villages, where the new army is swarming to
be billeted, the clergymen and their wives are greatly agitated. Even in
times of peace one's vicar's wife tells one stories in shocked whispers
of 'immorality'--though the rustic mind does not seem to regard it as
particularly immoral. An illegal baby