"It all depends on their reason for letting him go," said Captain Brent at the Gordons' that night. "They were either very anxious to get an aviator of their own back again—or else he was released for some other reason." Captain Brent evaded the probable "other reason," as Mr. Leslie had done in Lucy's hearing. He guessed, as Major Gordon did, that Bob was either ill or wounded, but Major Gordon felt confident, from the "all well" of Mr. Leslie's message, that there was no ground for heavy anxiety in his behalf.
"But do you think he'll go back to fight? How I wish we could see him and find out everything!" cried Lucy, with longing in her eyes.
"You may be sure he'll go back as soon as possible," declared Captain Brent. "But I think they might give him a month's leave to come home—they probably will."
"Oh, don't you suppose Captain Jourdin would come to see us if you asked him?" Lucy begged. "You see he's an aviator and so is Bob and I know he's interested. I want so much to talk to him again. He'd come if you asked him, wouldn't he, Captain Brent?"
"Why, perhaps he would, Lucy. You see he's awfully busy, and besides that he hates going about, because every one wants to make a hero of him, and he doesn't feel like one. But I think he'll come if your mother asks me to bring him. I don't know much about how exchanges are being managed in this war myself. He might tell us something."
As a result of this talk Captain Jourdin did come to the Gordons' one evening soon after, and though he could only guess at the circumstances of Bob's release he told Lucy one bit of welcome news about her brother.
"The dispatches say that the American Flying Squadron released Von Arnheim for Lieutenant Gordon. The squadron must think highly of your son's ability, Madame," he said to Mrs. Gordon, with a light in his brown eyes, "for they have given up a famous man to secure his freedom. I met Von Arnheim once—over Rheims. I thought he had me for a while. I still have a bullet he gave me somewhere in my shoulder-bone."
"How did you get away?" asked Lucy, breathlessly, forgetting Captain Brent's caution not to ask the pilot about his exploits.
"Oh, I flew away," said Captain Jourdin, laughing. "I just turned tail and, as they say here, 'beat it.'"
"Do you think Bob will go back to the war?" asked Marian, shyly.