"The one that the Germans dented, if you wish," she replied. "I can't spare another."
"And the Germans will be here very soon," Phil added, to see what the effect would be.
"It's time. They've sent enough calling cards!" replied Jacqueline. "The dirty, worthless, murderous, savage beasts, eating, swilling, killing other women's boys and destroying other people's property! Now, if you don't bother me it's likely that you will get a better dinner after I've cleaned up."
Advisedly they withdrew into the sitting-room, where Phil became a Roman sentinel on guard. Soon they had glimpses of green figures with cloth-covered helmets working their way through the grounds and along the village streets. But the figures seemed to be too busy to pay any attention to the house. Then shells began to break over the village and grounds again, French shells into the advancing German infantry, which once more sent the cousins to the cellar. When they returned upstairs Jacqueline met them, highly excited.
"I saw it with my own eyes!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't keep indoors when our shells were coming. Yes, I saw one burst right in among the beasts and knock a lot of them over! Three never will get up again and they carried the others away, back to the Kaiser!"
Put a red cap on Jacqueline, and with the flashing of her black eyes she would have needed no further make-up for the storming of the Bastille.
CHAPTER XIX
A CHOICE OF BILLETS
With the French guns withdrawn from range, nothing interfered with the remorselessly steady tramp of the column of infantry passing the gate; and out on the main road an unending stream of men, guns, and transport flowed, eyes on the goal of Paris. The chateau and its grounds were an island in the green advancing tide planning to overflow the world.