Michelle shook her head in doubtful soberness. “That rests with Maman and Armand. Money is scarce with us now, and we have not yet a home, except the little house in Château-Plessis.”
“Oh, how I’d love to go back there!” cried Lucy, warmed to vivid recollection. “Wouldn’t you love it, Bob? Though Château-Plessis doesn’t mean to you quite what it does to me.”
“To me it means some rather bad days spent wondering what had become of Father and you,” said Bob, still half-absorbed in thought, and profoundly annoyed at heart that Franz’ schemes could so absorb him.
Larry broke in, “Leave off reminiscing a minute, will you? As Bob remarked, it’s going to snow. In fact, it’s begun. Suppose we turn back?”
As he spoke big flakes fell lightly on his overcoat sleeve, which he held up for the others’ inspection. No wind stirred in the branches, but the cloudy sky had darkened the forest almost to twilight.
“Well, what’s a snow-storm, anyway, Larry?” asked Lucy, unmoved. “It’s rather nice here, I think, in this queer, dull light. We’re not three miles from the hospital.”
The snowflakes were now falling steadily, seeming to pour down all at once out of the heavens, as though emptied in bucketfuls.
“Ma foi, it is snowing hard!” exclaimed Michelle. “Captain Eaton is right, Lucy. Let us go back.”
Lucy complied and the four turned in their tracks, the snowflakes whirling thickly about them. A cold wind suddenly rose, driving bleakly through the pines and changing the murmur of the green branches to a dismal wail.
“Yes, he’s right,” agreed Lucy, smiling as she drew her cape close around her. “A little snowstorm can go a long way in a German forest. Bob, will you tell me why you’re so preoccupied?” she asked, looking with uneasy earnestness into her brother’s face. “You’ve spoken twice since we’ve been out.”