WHY HER NAME IS MARGUERITE V. L. F. CLEMENT

Voila! Here is France—France in New York and the France of to-day. One could forgive the Boche all the crimes he has committed but the one that he has robbed the French of their gayety, of their lightness of heart. Dark gray has taken the place of happy rose and green. Sparkling eyes have been dulled and the gay ribbons pleated in the hair of women have disappeared. A small black band on the sleeve tells the reason why. One hears laughter no longer from the open windows and on the street.

Voila! American and Canadian soldiers pass on the street and are cheered. Little boys and girls shake their hands. A young woman drops her marketing bag, claps her hands and cries "Vive l'Amerique," to which one gallant boy in khaki answers with "Vive la France!" Windows and doors open. Women and children bend over the sills as much as they dare. A hundred, a thousand hands applaud, a hundred, a thousand voices cheer, from a dozen phonographs "The Marseillaise" is heard.

Voila! you are in New York, in the French quarter, on Eighth Avenue between Twenty-eighth and Thirty-sixth Streets.

In the evenings the neighborhood still gathers at Clement's. Papa Baviele still holds the floor, only he no longer tells the stories of the Commune, while Blanchard and Clero are discussing the merits of a Packard engine or of a Bleriot versus a Curtiss airplane.

The war is the topic and Clement speaks with authority, for he has been in it, in 1870.

"We would have beaten them then, only we had a sleepy Emperor and a coward or a traitor—in the end it amounts to the same—as a general."

"Père Clement is right," said old Bideaux. "Foch was born fifty years too late. Look here, how many of us are missing? Bernard, Duval, Chuffot, Denure, Carreaux, Henry—all the young ones gone to France. La Vielle Mamma Clement, a little more wine—to forget."

"Where is Marguerite?" Papa Clement asked his wife.

Marguerite, the young wife of Clement's son, Bernard, had been living with them since her husband returned to France to do his duty. Six months after she had come over to this country with her widowed father, Bideaux, the mechanician, the war broke out. But in these six months she had loved and married Bernard.

"Ma petite," he said to her on the second day of August, "I shall go and see my consul." And when he came back he told her, "I am going to fight the Boches."

And he went.

She went to work. Her nimble fingers and developed sense for beauty of line found employment in a dress shop. And each week she sent something to her Bernard, somewhere in France, to supplement the four sous a day the Government was paying him. Every evening, returning from work, she asked, "Any news?"

Bernard wrote frequently and well. Twice they had had bad news. Wounded at the Aisne. Wounded on the Verdun front. "But Marguerite's husband won't die before he has again kissed her and told her all about the savage Boche. Tell papa I don't want ever to see Hans Seidel at our table again. His Socialism was only masquerade. I can swear I saw him in one of the Aisne attacks. We must learn not to forget our wounds even after they have healed."

Hans Seidel had never left New York, and was still a frequent guest at Clement's, where his Alsatian French amused everybody. But after Bernard's letter he was gently told his company was no longer desired.

"Marguerite will soon be here, père."

There was a ring at the door. Mamma Clement ran to open.

"Marguerite Clement?" a voice asked, and a uniformed boy stepped into the room.

"She not here—but I am ze father."

And Clement's shaking hands stretched for the envelope the boy held between his fingers.

"Ne pleure pas, don't cry. A million sons of other mothers have paid the price. Be brave."

He did not cry. "Be French, quoi!"

But the mother cried. Clement seemed to have aged ten years in ten minutes. The other men present withdrew to the remotest corners of the room. Only old Bideaux emptied his glass, muttering a terrible oath.

"He has sold his life dearly—friends. The letter says we shall soon receive his Croix de Guerre and his Legion d'Honneur medal. What a son I had! What a son we had!"

"A brave son," they all said.

Mamma Clement was in the other room crying softly. The men tried to console the father.

Suddenly they all stopped talking. Steps were heard on the stairway. They looked one at the other.

"That's Marguerite's step," said her father.

The crying of the mother ceased. Was it because she realized the other woman's pain? Was it because she wanted to be brave, or because she wanted to postpone the news?

The men regrouped themselves around the table. A key was turned in the latch. The door opened wide and radiantly Marguerite floated into the room.

"Bonsoir, papa, Bonsoir, mes amis. Good news! Very good news!"

She kissed every one present as she spread a newspaper on the table.

"Yesterday the Bulgars asked for peace, to-day St. Quentin is French again."

She took her father's hand and started to dance.

"What's the matter, quoi? Why don't you dance? Come quick, the Marseillaise—Allons enfants de la patrie——"

But no one moved. Mamma Clement came out from her room. "Oh, Marguerite!" she wanted to cry, but checked herself in presence of so much exuberance.

"We can't dance, Marguerite; it's—after ten o'clock—it's New York. People want to sleep."

"Ah! voila! you are old, all of you, that's the reason."

A group of boys passed in the street, singing. Marguerite threw open the window, applauded and yelled at the top of her voice "Bravo!" And the gayer she grew the sadder the men looked. It made their situation ever so harder.

"Sure, you drink wine all alone—give me some, too—and who gives me a glass? Oh, I want to be happy—the war will soon end. The Boche gets his due. Why do you sit like undertakers?"

She had one look at all of them. It sobered her.

"It is about Bernard. What is it? Come, tell me, what it is."

None present dared say a word. They all stood up. Her thin voice had changed to a deep alto. Her frivolous little head suddenly became as stern as the image of vengeance.

Her father, old Bideaux, was the first to recover.

"Give her the letter, Clement."

In a glance she took in all the contents. Bernard was dead. The rest was not important.

Her eyes closed. Her muscles stiffened as she gripped the edge of the table. It looked as though she was going to faint. She remained so for a few minutes, then she threw her head back and with all her strength she yelled at the top of her voice:

"Vive la France! Vive la France! Vive la France!"

And the mother and the father of the dead soldier repeated the cry with tears in their eyes, as loudly as they could, to dull the edge of their cutting pain, to drown their sorrow.

"You said, Bideaux, I had a brave son. But how much braver is your daughter!"

"What is your name, please?" Mr. Lauders asked the young Frenchwoman in mourning applying for the position of designer in his dressmaking shop.

"My name is Marguerite V. L. F. Clement."

"Full name, please?"

"Marguerite Vive la France Clement——"

And every time Marguerite's pain is too sharp to bear she cries out: "Vive la France!"

It's now more than four years since the Boche invaded New York through the French quarter. Gray and black are the dominant colors of what was the most joyous district of our city.