“Don’t you like her?” asked Lucy, always eager to hear Michelle praised.
“I do. She’s one of the sort that made France able to stick it out to the bitter end. Only she’s too old for her age. I’d like to see her laugh oftener.”
“She will, but not quite yet. She’s been through—things.” Lucy stopped, suddenly unwilling to talk about the past.
“Eaton, you’re going to Oxford? I’m glad,” said Alan to Larry. “We’ll all meet again in England before Lucy has time to get much 'homesicker.’ I don’t care if you’ve no mystery to clear up, Lucy. Come anyway.”
“It’s going to be a great day, Alan, when you get home,” said General Gordon. “Your mother will have all three back again—more than she ever hoped for.”
“Yes, and Arthur and I about as hale as ever. Poor old Dad has lost his arm—but it’s his left. We’re in luck. I’m awfully grateful to you, Cousin James, for getting me placed here for convalescence. It hasn’t been bad, you know.” Alan spoke with more warmth than his words held, looking at the faces around him with the clear, casual glance that hid so much from the average passer-by, yet somehow contrived to win him countless friends. “I’m almost fond of my little slice of German forest,” he added. “Lucy, you must let me help you to-morrow and walk through it once more.”
Lucy was willing enough and, on the day following, she and Alan volunteered to go with the orderly to the spring. The small staff at Badheim hospital made it necessary for each member of it to perform a variety of tasks. Lucy, far from objecting to the lack of routine, rather liked it, and found her changing duties helped to keep her from feeling the monotony of her hard-working daily life. Especially she liked being out-of-doors on these crisp, sunny winter days, when the snow felt dry and firm underfoot and the green pine-boughs shook white flakes on her head when the cold breeze stirred them.
Alan was in high spirits at the certainty of seeing England before the week was past. He overflowed with such light-hearted gayety that Lucy soon reflected a part of it and, forgetting the forest silence, talked and laughed until the squirrels began chattering above her head and a surprised white rabbit paused in her path and fled into the shadows.
“Don’t make me laugh, Alan,” she said, as they went on deeper into the woodland. “Somehow it always seems out of place here.”
“We’re out of place, if you like,” said Alan, refusing to be silenced. “Come back home and I’ll show you a real English forest, as beautiful as this, and yet without the gloom. You couldn’t imagine Robin Hood and his men singing among these trees.”