"You are a good pupil, ma'am'selle; you learn quickly. Now the maps." And they fell to diagraming where the piping for this deadly gas should be laid.
Not an inch of the old world was to be left peopled; from east to west and north to south everything was to be destroyed. No, not everything. Even as Monsieur Satan decreed it he hesitated. "There are the children, I think--yes, I think they shall live. Their hearts are pure; the Boches cannot contaminate them. They shall live after us with no memory of evil, so they can build again the beautiful world." He stopped and looked across at the nurse with a haunting, wistful stare. "Tell me, ma'am'selle, was the world ever beautiful?"
He passed an uncertain hand over his eyes. "I seem to remember that it was; but now I see it always running with red blood boiling from hell."
After that the children were always in his mind; as he planned the destruction of the rest of the world he planned their re-creation. Thereupon Sheila saw to it that the war orphans from the _crêche_ came to play in the hospital gardens--under the window of the little room. Soon it became a custom for Monsieur Satan to look for them, to ask their names, and wave gaily to them. And they waved back. And the chief of the surgical staff began to marvel that Monsieur Satan should give no more trouble.
Among them was a little girl, a wan, ethereal little creature who sat apart from the other children and watched their play with far-away, haunting eyes, as if she wondered what in the world they were doing. Sheila had found toys for her--a ball, a doll, a jumping-jack--and tried to coax her to play. But she only clung to them for their rare value as possessions; as a means to enjoyment they were quite meaningless. From one of the older children Sheila got her story. Her father had been killed, her mother was with the Boches; there was no one else. With an aching heart the nurse wondered how many thousand Madelines France held.
One day she brought the child in to Monsieur Satan and repeated her story. He listened wisely, patting her on the head, and then whispered to Sheila: "Ah, what did I say! These Boches--they get everything--the mothers, the sweethearts." Then to Madeline: "Listen, ma pauvre; you shall have the sadness no longer. Monsieur Satan will promise you happiness, ah, such happiness in the new beautiful world he is preparing for you. Now go. But 'sh ... sh! You must say nothing."