“It may be. If not we shall meet him in Paris. We have had that message of his. It is enough.” And with this Lucie was obliged to be satisfied.
It had been an eventful day, but its excitements appeared to Lucie no greater than those to which she looked forward in that great city of Paris, which place she half feared, then longed to see. Was it there that their home was to be henceforth, and what would it be like? She could not form any picture of it in her mind, but wherever it might be it was there that she would next see her parents. She fell asleep wondering how soon they would all be united, and slept soundly, the “so intelligent dog” curled up at her feet.
She awoke bright and early the next morning, at first imagining herself back in her own room, though she soon perceived the difference and sat up, the better to observe what she had failed to take in the night before. It was a clean, orderly little room adorned with such things as appeal to a young man’s taste, and she concluded that one of those three sons must have occupied it before he went soldiering.
“At least it is not a cow shed,” she remarked to Pom Pom, “although for my part I do not care for those funny things upon the wall.” She was attracted by a pair of foils and fencing gloves at which she looked curiously, then gave her attention to other manly adornments of the room. These, however, did not keep her attention very long, for she remembered the eventful journey which was probably before her, and soon made ready to go downstairs to glean such news as might have been gathered during the night. She found Paulette still in the rôle of heroine recounting her adventures to a group of Marianne’s friends. She stopped short at sight of Lucie and the little company of gossips dispersed so that Lucie was left alone with Paulette, whom she began to consider rather a person of importance who might very well direct their future plans.
“What news? What news?” she asked. “Has anything been heard of my grandfather?”
“Nothing,” replied Paulette, “and no news is good news. As for other things they say the Germans are still advancing and that the people are flocking from the villages by thousands. Those that do not flee must remain to be under German rule. We are lucky, we, to have come when we did.”
“What would have happened if we had stayed?”
“If we were not killed by the bombardment, we would have been caught like rats in a trap.”
“Would they have killed us?” asked Lucie in horror.
“One cannot say, but for my part I should not like the idea of being forced to obey a boche.”