"Then I shall follow her, unless she remains in the cellar. In that case I'll follow you."
"Very well," she assented, with a shrug; and looking up again: "I'm ashamed of myself for fainting this afternoon. It was the sight of blood. I haven't thought of that. It makes me afraid, and war means that, and I had wanted to see war."
They met the General coming out of the chateau, and Phil noted again how straight he was and how confident and happy. It was a picture of the old warrior which he was ever to remember. Indoors they found Jacqueline, now that the shell-fire had ceased, busy preparing déjeuner, while she abused the Germans for having dented a saucepan. War or no war, people must eat. Her business was to cook and she went about her business, French fashion. The result of being up all night and under fire, as the General or any other old campaigner could have told them, was that the three cousins were ravenously hungry. They had a surprising sense of security, though guns and rifle-fire could be heard around them. In a few hours they had become habituated to war.
Helen was silent, thinking in pictures, the multitude of pictures that she had seen that morning. It seemed to her that she had enough material to keep her drawing for a lifetime.
"That black hole is the place where we sat beside the road," said Henriette, looking across to Phil with a grateful smile. Then she referred to the scene in the gully and spoke of how brave and cheery the wounded soldier had been, even as blood was dropping from his cheeks.
"Don't!" exclaimed Helen, with a shudder.
"Sorry, dear!" said Henriette, and changed the subject.
After exhaustion and hunger, food; and after food nature, even within sound of the guns, will assert itself on an August day. If one of the shells bursting half a mile away had burst in the garden, then nature would have yielded to nervous excitement, which may manifest itself in outward calm or in chattering teeth. In either instance, the strain is there.
"I confess to feeling sleepy," said Henriette, nodding, her long lashes drooping after the meal.
"And you, Helen?"