"My child! It is a luxury!" cried the countess. "I shall feel wicked."
"Perhaps it will be nice to feel wicked for once," Ruth said, feeling a little choke in her throat.
She drew from concealment her own contribution to the "feast"—several lumps of sugar.
"Do not fear," she added, smiling. "None of the poor poilus are deprived. This is from my own private store. I wish there was more of it, but I can't resist giving a lump now and then to the village children. They are so hungry for it. They call me 'Mam'zelle Sucre'."
"And I would bring you cream often, Madame," Henriette hastened to add, "but our good old Lally died, you know, and the little cow does not give much milk as yet, and it is not as rich. Oh! if that werwolf had not appeared to us! You remember, Mademoiselle Ruth? Then old Lally died at once," and the French girl nodded her head vigorously, being fully convinced of the truth of the old superstition.
The countess flushed and then paled, but nobody but Ruth noticed this. The American girl watched her hostess covertly. The bare mention of a superstition that had the whole countryside by the throat, disturbed much the countess' self-control.
The next moment there was a step in the hall and then the door opened to admit the same young officer Ruth Fielding had met in the lane—Major Henri Marchand.
"Pardon, Maman," he said, bowing, and speaking to his mother quite like a little boy. "Do I offend?"
"Do come in and have a cup of tea, Henri. There is sugar and real cream—thanks to our two young friends here. You remember our petite Hetty, of course? And this is our very brave Mademoiselle Ruth Fielding, of the American Red Cross. My younger son, Monsieur Henri," the countess said easily.
Major Marchand advanced into the room promptly. To Henriette he bowed with a smile. Ruth put out her hand impulsively, and he bowed low above it and touched his lips to her fingers.