Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/263

 the defense of Verdun. The war declaration of April 6, 1917, seemed now to Ruth but a sort of official notification of the intentions of the American people which since then had only continued to develop. That home country which she had left in the last days of January was not nearly so different from its peace-time self as war-time France had proved distinct from war-time America.

Certainly Ruth's life had run on almost unchanged by the American declaration of war, save for the strengthening of her futile, stifled passions. But that day in January, which had embarked her for France, had ushered her into a realm which demanded dealings in realities which swiftly had made all before seem illusory and phantasmagorical.

The feeling of dreamland incredulity that she, Ruth Alden, could actually be experiencing those gloriously exciting days upon the Ribot and following her arrival in France had been supplanted by sensations which made it seem that these last weeks had been the only real ones in her life. When she thought of her old self—of that strange, shadowy, almost substanceless girl who used to work in a Madison Street real estate office for Sam Hilton—it was her life in Chicago which had become incredible. She did not, therefore, forget her own home; on the contrary, her work which had been largely the gathering together of scattered family groups and the attempt to reestablish homes, had made her dwell with particular poignancy upon memories of the little house in Onarga where her mother and her sisters dwelt. Regularly Ruth had addressed a letter to her mother and dropped it in a post-box; she had dared tell nothing of herself or of her