Three weeks afterward they all left for England, and even the Prussian was almost reconciled to us, for he said in parting: "Auf Wiedersehen!"
CHAPTER XIII
The colonel's seven-passenger Berliet was chug-chugging softly at the villa door, the drowsy hum of the exhaust hinting of concealed power and speed. The colonel, Reggy, Jack Wellcombe and I were about to commence our long-looked-for trip to that battered corner of Belgium which still remained in British hands.
Tim was standing at the door with his master's "British warm" thrown across his arm, waiting for the colonel to come out. It was a clear cold February morning, the air had in it just the faintest hint of frost, but not a breath of wind stirred the green foliage of the pines. Lady Danby's runabout stood across the road, and from beneath it peeped a pair of trim limbs encased in thick woollen stockings and ending in a pair of lady's heavy walking boots; telling Tim that her ladyship's dainty "chauffeur" was somewhere there below.
The "lady-chauffeur" was one of that eccentric, but interesting, band of mannish Englishwomen who invaded France in the early days of the war, and who have done wonders toward making Tommy's life in a foreign land agreeable. Intelligent, highly educated, remarkably indifferent to the opinion of the outside world, Miss Granville was a character worth more than a passing glance. Her toque was always pulled well over her ears, her thick, short grey woollen skirt had two immense pockets in the front, into which her hands, when not otherwise engaged, were always deeply thrust. A long cigarette invariably drooped from the corner of her pretty, but determined mouth, and she walked with a swinging, athletic stride. Romance might have passed her by unnoticed; but the world could not ignore her—she was too much a part of it. Some innate chivalry impelled Tim to step across and offer his assistance to the fair one in distress.
"Kin I be any help to ye, Miss?" he enquired, as he stooped down and peered underneath the car at the little lady who, stretched at full length upon, her back, was smoking a cigarette and at the same time screwing home an unruly nut.
"Oh! Is that you, Tim?" she remarked without removing the cigarette or taking her eyes off her work. "No, thanks, I think not—this is a woman's job."
"Ladies does queer stunts in France," Tim commented meditatively; "we ain't taken advantage uv dem in Canada de way we ought. See how de womens here, carries wood on dere backs, an', look at dem fish-women ketchin' skrimps in de sea. Gee, de gals to home ain't never seed real work!"
"You should train them, Tim. It's all a matter of up-bringing. Won't you have a cigarette?" she replied as she thrust a long open silver case out from under the car toward him. Tim extracted an Egyptian of a size such as he had never seen before.
"T'ankee, Miss—dat's a smoke fer a prince."