"Oh," she cried, "I am glad, so glad I came, Mr. Flood! It is going to be a wonderful afternoon! I am thrilling even now! The suffering and the sacrifice and the glory! They have left their marks everywhere, haven't they?"
Flood looked at her with admiration so engrossing as to make him scarcely aware of what she said; Pendleton was discussing roads with the chauffeur, but Mrs. Maxwell turned in her seat.
"What on earth are you talking about, Rosamund?" she demanded.
"The battlefield!" the girl explained. "The field and the marking stones, the orchard where Father was wounded—all, all of it! I am going over it bit by bit, every inch of it, and I'm going to thrill, thrill, thrill! Probably cry, too!" she added. "I hope you brought your vanity-box along, Cecilia!"
"But, my dear child, we are going to the Summit! We are going to see Eleanor!"
For once Cecilia welcomed the thought of Eleanor, but Rosamund only laughed.
"Mr. Flood will bring us another day to see Eleanor," she said, "won't you, Mr. Flood? To-day, Cissy darling, I am going to see Battlesburg—just as if I were a tourist!"
Mrs. Maxwell looked at her in amazement. "Rosamund!" she cried. "Mr. Flood! Marshall! Marshall! Please! Mr. Flood, you certainly did not bring us on this trip to go sight-seeing, did you? Marshall, did you ever hear anything so absurd? Rosamund wants to go paddling about in this—this graveyard!"
Rosamund was unabashed. "Yes, of course I do!" she said. "So do you, don't you, Mr. Flood? And, Marshall, you know you've wanted to fight a battle over again ever since the last one we had at my ninth birthday party, when I pulled your hair and you were too polite to smack me!"
"I never wanted to fight in all my life, Rosamund," Pendleton drawled. "Certainly not on a day like this, and after a Dutch midday dinner."