Now, forgetting everything but his curiosity, and negligently contemptuous of Franz’ feelings, he asked casually enough, standing beside the fire, while Lucy lifted Adelheid to her knees:
“Been to Coblenz, Franz? Selling wood in the city?”
Franz hesitated, really puzzled, Lucy fancied, by Alan’s German, but after a little pause he answered, “Yes, Herr Officer. I go there almost every day with my fagots.”
“Into the city, eh? Or to the Rhine?” Alan asked this quite meaninglessly, echoing Franz’ words of half an hour back, but the German’s eyes lighted with something like alarm as he said haltingly:
“The Rhine? Why should I go there? What does the Herr mean? The road winds along the Moselle, but, once in the city, I sell my goods and return.”
“Through the forest? Ever meet anyone there?”
“Alan, please don’t,” Lucy murmured.
Franz stared at the Britisher, his face set in a look of stolid obstinacy. His lips parted and he moved his head to frame a denial, but before it was spoken he checked himself, forced a pale smile, leaned down to stir the fire, or to compose his countenance, and rising again spoke coolly enough:
“Why, yes, Herr Officer. I suppose you mean the gentleman who comes here sometimes? He is a Herr who often hunts in this forest, and, as I served under him, he sometimes honors me by a little notice.”
As he finished this commonplace account the German faced Alan with a kind of dumb defiance, as though inwardly he added, “There! What have you got to object to in that?”