“Michelle, I can’t stand it any longer,” she told her friend, in the privacy of the de la Tours’ little house. Her calmness and patience had all at once fallen from her. Michelle looked at her flushed cheeks and trouble-haunted eyes, and exclaimed, frightened at the change in her:
“But, Lucy—what can you do? No good comes from fear and anger. I know that well. We can do nothing but wait and hope.”
“I can’t wait and I can’t hope any longer! I’m not like you, Michelle—brave all the time. My courage comes in spurts, and when it goes I am a coward. The one thing I cannot stand is waiting!”
Michelle was silent, but her expressive face said as plainly as words that Lucy might have to bear longer than a month what she herself had borne four years.
“Yes, I know what you think, Michelle,” cried Lucy, reading her mind. “It’s you who should be desperate, not I. But it was watching the fight yesterday that finished me. Before that I still had a little courage left.”
“You mean—your brother?” Michelle asked softly.
“Yes, not knowing anything—if he is safe, or who won the battle. Like Father, I’m getting so I can’t sleep or eat or do anything but wonder why on earth the Americans haven’t tried to push on.”
“I know—I know,” Michelle agreed with instant sympathy. “But they will, Lucy. It seems bright to us now, who remember the black days before America was with us.”
“But, Michelle, Major Greyson and the others who can get near the German lines think the Allies are going to attack. You know how the firing has recommenced toward Montdidier, the last two days? Last night a regiment marched through Château-Plessis on its way south. I’m sure the Germans expect something.”
“I hope they will wait for it at the wrong place,” said Michelle, sighing, “but they are very hard to surprise.”