Michelle listened to Lucy in silence, her eyes shining, her cheeks flushing red. “Oh, le vilain Boche!” she cried at last, and her voice shook with the ardor of her feelings as she pressed her hands together, vainly trying to control her excitement. “It seems not true, Lucy, that Herr Johann, von Eckhardt—whatever he is called—should have sought to destroy his own country!”
“He didn’t think of it that way,” said Lucy, meditatively. “He was so crazy to restore the old government that a Bolshevik revolution seemed to him as good a way as any. That is what Bob and Major Harding told me. When the Bolsheviki began to be dangerous von Eckhardt and his friends planned to tell everyone that to save the country they must call back von Hindenberg, Ludendorf and the rest. It might have worked.”
“Yes, it might. We might have had more war.” Michelle was still hot and trembling. Once more Lucy realized what the past four years had meant to her, and how horrible beyond words was the thought that the war might be prolonged.
“Don’t think about it, Michelle—there’s no danger now,” she said with happy confidence.
Lucy herself, now the plot was unearthed and brought to nothing, felt no more than a moderate resentment against von Eckhardt and his associates. They were crushed and the danger past. Like Alan, she did not want even to think of Germans or Bolsheviki. In her overwhelming relief a great peace entered her soul, and for the first time she yielded to all the quiet charm of the forest, ready, as Larry was, to take exile cheerfully and look ahead to better things.
“Let’s not bother about it, Michelle, now it’s over,” she urged, putting one arm about her friend’s shoulders and giving her a quick hug. “It’s only Trudchen and the children we have to think of.”
“I know, of course,” agreed Michelle, but her vivid imagination still held the frightened shadows in her eyes. “It is that I saw it again, Lucy, the war once more begun! Armand in the worst danger—Maman and I driven from home—the Germans coming on and on and France nearly beaten. Oh, Lucy, those are things that even with many years I never can forget!”
Lucy was silent, but as she watched Michelle’s flaming cheeks and darkened eyes she thought, “I’ll write Cousin Janet to-day. Michelle must go with me to England.” At last she said, “Suppose you go back to the hospital now, Michelle, and let me talk to Franz’ wife. Why should you see another Boche if you can help it?”
Michelle had conquered her feelings with her usual self-control, and now she smiled at Lucy’s proposal.
“I do not mind going with you, Lucy,” she protested. “I do not hate Adelheid and the little ones. It would be a hard heart that could blame them.”