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“It won’t be pretty.” Dr. Stringfellow frowned at her. “The discussion may become . . . technical.”

“And what of it?” said Mrs. Rutherford. “It will be instructive.”

Dr. Stringfellow looked hard at her old roommate. “It is not for the faint of heart.”

Mrs. Rutherford gave her back stare for stare. “Neither is our work.”

“Are you sure that will be wise, Betsy?”

“When did any venture ever succeed by being wise?”

Dr. Stringfellow raised her eyes to the heavens. “It’s never any good to argue with you.”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Rutherford, with a twinkle in her eyes. “You never win.”

“Only because you refuse to admit defeat,” said Dr. Stringfellow resignedly, and Emmie could imagine them in their room at Smith, in the pompadours and puffed sleeves of two decades ago, having the exact same argument. There was something terribly comforting about it, about the sameness of it. She and Kate used to bicker like that, years ago—back before they went their separate ways, with only the odd letter to mark the passage of the years. “On your head be it. We’ll see what the hospital thinks when we show up with the whole lot of us rather than two.”

“They will be charmed,” said Mrs. Rutherford, and that was the end of that.

“What do you think she’s up to that she doesn’t want us around?” whispered Maud as they took the tram to Neuilly. She was wearing a crimson hat with her uniform, a determinedly Parisian hat, which Emmie found rather funny as all the Parisians they saw were wearing black. “Mrs. Rutherford, I mean. Did you hear all that at breakfast?”

“I think she wants us busy and occupied,” said Emmie, thinking about it. The Paris through which they were passing was a very different Paris from the one she had visited with her mother a mere five years before. This was a black-and-khaki Paris, populated by soldiers and widows. The busy traffic she remembered was gone, replaced by military vehicles and the odd taxi, too old and ancient to be of use in the war effort.

This wasn’t a Paris for casual visitors; this was a Paris for those who had come to work. If one had to think about it too much, it would be, thought Emmie, terribly depressing. It made her fingers itch to be working at something, sewing a seam or knitting a fringe or writing a letter. Something. Anything.

“Are you sure that’s all?” asked Maud ominously.

“We’re almost to the hospital,” Dr. Stringfellow said, effectively cutting off further speculation. “Do I need to straighten your hats and inspect your handkerchiefs, or can we simply proceed as a party of reasonable adults?”

Two by two, they filtered out after Dr. Stringfellow and Julia, the two doctors leading the way.

“We look like an American boarding school out for a walk,” said Miss Patton, with a nervous giggle. She reached up to adjust her hat, of a rather violent purple. It was a brave hat, Emmie decided, even if it did make her complexion sallow.

“All we need are our field hockey sticks,” agreed Miss Englund equably. “Is that the hospital? It looks more like a school.”

“I believe it was a school initially,” said Dr. Stringfellow. “Before.”

There was something terribly ominous about that “before.” Emmie couldn’t stop staring. They were all staring. Emmie had been expecting—oh, not a tent, but something more makeshift. This was a grand edifice, immense beyond comprehending, wings stretching out behind wings, brick and stone and mansard roofs, more like a palace than a temporary medical facility. “It’s enormous.”

“And every inch of it in use,” said Dr. Stringfellow grimly. “They tell me there’s never enough room for all the blessés.”

There were ambulances coming and going, soldiers everywhere. One wing seemed to be devoted entirely to garaging the ambulances. Uniforms of all varieties mixed and mingled. Emmie found herself craning her head from one side to the other as they walked through an enormous arch into a courtyard thick with windows. Windows upon windows, wings upon wings, all filled with wounded. Les blessés.

“There are a lot of them, aren’t there?” Emmie swallowed hard. “It does seem like all the world has come to France, doesn’t it? Do you see the Algerian soldiers in their red fez? Is it fez or fezes?”

“Or maybe it’s something impossible like those Greek plurals you never see coming,” suggested Miss Cooper, equally glad to seize on something silly. “Pais, paides. Fez, faides.”

It was nerves, Emmie knew. Nerves made people act foolishly. She got silly when she was nervous, talking too much and telling endless stories and making horrible jokes. Kate, she remembered from college exams, got quiet and sharp. And Julia—Julia was always Julia.

Instinctively, they all huddled closer together as they entered the hospital, their noses stung by the strong scent of carbolic. There were blessés all about, blessés with faces wrapped in bandages, blessés standing on crutches, blessés waving greetings with the stumps where their hands used to be.

“They all seem so terribly glad to see us,” murmured Miss Patton, waving back to a man without an arm.

“We’re women,” said Miss Englund bluntly. “And we’re not here to stick needles into them.”

“Dr. Stringfellow?” A woman in the traditional nurse’s costume of white pinny over a voluminous gray dress came up to greet them. She had red hair tucked up beneath her cap and a dimple in one cheek. “I’m Nurse Fellowes. Welcome.”

“How did you guess?” asked Dr. Stringfellow drily.