"I'm a little dazed myself," I admitted, "but it's all a part of the soldier-game. Some other day we'll find the cards reversed, and have to play it just the same."
Our host, however, was not a German, although that was his native tongue. He came from that little-known country of Luxembourg, which, sandwiched in between France and her Teutonic enemy, has still maintained a weak and unavailing neutrality. Being too small and unprotected to resist, the German army marched unmolested across it in the early days of war.
"Alvred," who was a French-Swiss, and spoke more languages than I can well remember, waited upon us at table. We were just finishing an excellent five-course dinner with a tiny glass of coin-treau, when the sound of a motor-car stopping at the door aroused us from our dream of heavenly isolation.
As we stepped into the hall, the door opened, and in walked the colonel, the senior major and the quartermaster, who had followed us from Boulogne by road.
"Well, how do you like our new hospital?" the colonel demanded with a satisfied smile.
"We love it," Burnham exclaimed. "It is weird, romantic and altogether comme il faut."
I suggested that a liqueur and a cigar might not be unacceptable after their long drive. The colonel smiled appreciatively as he replied:
"We are a bit chilly after our journey; I think a little drink will do us good. What do you say, Major Baldwin?" This question was addressed to the senior major, who, with the others, had now entered our dining room.
The artistic surroundings drove the major into poetry at once. He exclaimed:
"'Ah! my beloved, fill the cup that clears
To-day of past regrets and future fears.'"