This programme was settled when—through influence at Nancy—Father Beckett's passes for four had been extended to Verdun and Rheims. I breathed a sigh of relief at the prospect of two more days without the O'Farrells; and all that's Irish in me trusted to luck that "something might happen" to part us forever. Why not? The Red Cross taxi might break down (it looked ready to shake to pieces any minute!). Dierdre might be taken ill (no marble statue could be paler!). Or the pair might be arrested by the military police as dangerous spies. (Really, I wouldn't "put it past" them!). But my secret hopes were rudely jangled with my first sight of Brian on the Verdun morning.
"Molly, I hope you won't mind," he said, "but I've promised O'Farrell to go with them and meet you in Paris to-morrow night. I've already spoken to Mr. Beckett and he approves."
"This comes of my being ten minutes late!" I almost—not quite—cried aloud. I'd hardly closed my eyes all night, but had fallen into a doze at dawn and overslept myself. Meanwhile the O'Farrell faction had got in its deadly work!
I was angry and disgusted, yet—as usual where that devil of a Puck was concerned—I had the impulse to laugh. It was as if he'd put his finger to his nose and chuckled in impish glee: "You hope to get rid of us, do you, you minx? Well, I'll show you!" But I should be playing his game if I lost my temper.
"Why do the O'Farrells want you to go with them?" I "camouflaged" my rage.
"It's Julian who wants me," explained the dear boy. (Oh, it had come to Christian names!) "It seems Miss O'Farrell has taken it into her head that none of us likes her, and that we've arranged this way to get rid of them both—letting them down easily and making some excuse not to start again together from Paris. O'Farrell thought if I'd offer to go with them and sit in the back of the car while he drove I could persuade her——"
"Well, I don't envy any one the task of persuading that girl to believe a thing she doesn't wish to believe," I exploded. "My private opinion is, though, that her brother's sister needs no persuading. The two of them want to show me that they have power——"
Brian broke in with a laugh. "My child, you see things through a magnifying glass! Is your blind brother a prize worth squabbling over? I can be of use to the Becketts, it's true, when we travel without a military escort, or with one young officer who knows more about seventy-fives than about the romance of history. I can tell them what I've read and what I've seen. But at Verdun you'll be in the society of generals; and at Rheims of as many dignitaries as haven't been bombarded out of town. The Becketts don't need me. Perhaps Miss O'Farrell does."
"Perhaps!" I repeated.
Brian can see twice as much as those who have eyes, but he would not see my sarcasm. Just then, however, Mrs. Beckett joined us in the hall of the hotel, where we stood ready to start—all having breakfasted in our own rooms. She guessed from my face that I was not pleased with Brian's plan.