The others looked uncertain, one with keen black eyes and firm mouth biting his nails while he considered.
"The man answers the description." The first man looked dubious.
"Use your sense," said a third man. "The child——"
All eyes turned on Bettina.
"You have lost your father and mother?" She felt the keen black eyes reading her through and through.
At the sound of these names and at the thought that she would never again see them, her lips quivered and her eyes filled.
The man stopped quickly.
"Let them pass," he said with a shrug. "Only a fool would choose such a messenger," and he glanced with contempt at Hans, who certainly had answered stupidly, quite like a peasant, saying he knew no French, and begging them to speak in German.
"God be praised, child," he cried, when they were safe through the lines, "you have saved me. The first danger is passed." And he bent down and kissed her.
"Shall we save the Queen, grandfather?"