So they sat once again, side by side, on the promenade deck. The azure billows of the sea splashed round the planks of the vessel. The boundless surface of ocean glittered with a marvellous brilliancy, and everything seemed bathed in a flood of light. The double awning over the heads of the young couple kept off the burning heat of the sun, and a refreshing breeze swept across the deck beneath it.
“Then you would land with me at Brindisi?” asked Heideck.
“At Brindisi, or Aden, or Port Said—where you like.”
“I think Brindisi will be the most suitable place. Then we can travel together to Berlin.”
Edith nodded assent.
“But I don’t know how long I shall stay in Berlin,” continued Heideck. “I hope I shan’t be sent to join my regiment at once.”
“If you are I shall go with you, wherever it may be,” she said as quietly as if it were a matter of course.
“That would hardly be possible,” he rejoined, with a smile. “We Germans make war without women.”
“And yet I shall go with you.”
Heideck looked at her in amazement. “But don’t you understand, dear, that it would be something entirely novel, and bound to create a sensation, for a German officer to take the field with his betrothed?”