“You may be sure of that,” said Bob. “Else he wouldn’t have invited me here so confidently. Still, he must feel pretty sure by now that I’m not coming. I’ll take a look around. Smarty-cats like Herr Johann sometimes think too poorly of other people’s intelligence. That’s a German failing.”
Lucy was so pleased with the rustic quaintness of the lodge interior, with the leaping fire on the great hearth and the snowflakes falling outside in the shadowy forest that she began to think that Herr Johann might be excused for his oddities.
“I could almost believe that he comes here to hunt in winter,” she declared, stretching her arms behind her head, her cape slipped from her shoulders in the pleasant warmth. “If I had this lodge I shouldn’t be able to keep away from it.”
“I’ll tell you now what I began back there in the forest,” proposed Bob, at this remark. “I told you about my talk with Herr Johann——Did Lucy tell you, Michelle? Well, the next day I went to Coblenz to see Elizabeth, but she was out. Larry and I overtook her by accident, followed her, and saw her meet Franz on one of the terraces of the Rhine Embankment.”
“Meet Franz!” Lucy started up to lean forward, staring into Bob’s face. “Then he’s all right! They did tell the truth!”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” Bob demurred. “Either they are all right or Elizabeth is all——”
“Bob!” Lucy caught her brother’s arm in shocked surprise. “Why, Bob, how can you? You don’t suspect—Elizabeth?”
“No, I really don’t. Yet I have reason enough to. She wouldn’t explain anything.”
“Because there was nothing to tell,” cried Lucy confidently. “Oh, now I shan’t worry any more about Franz, if Elizabeth trusts him. Don’t you see, Bob, what that means? Franz is just a disagreeable old German who hates us because we won.”
“Hum, you’re easily convinced,” said Bob, staring into the fire. “I felt for a moment the same way, but now when I think of Herr Johann——”