"France will win because there is still a God in heaven!" was the rallying judgment of Jacqueline, when everybody was blue.
Up at dawn, sweeping, dusting, and scouring, it was she who brought the first glorious word. She burst into Helen's room, awakening her with a cry of:
"It's nearer—nearer! Listen!"
Helen ran to Henriette's room and then she pounded on Phil's door. Could imagination be deceiving them again? Phil slipped into his clothes and hurried out to the terrace. He could see the burst of light smoke once more against the green of the hills which had hidden the battle, and transport going to the rear along the road was more numerous. Only ammunition trucks and ambulances were moving forward. He ran back to the house in schoolboy delight, shouting the news.
"They will dent my saucepans, will they," said Jacqueline, "and rub sausage grease into my floors!"
She, too, went to the terrace to watch that unfolding panorama of German retreat; of cavalry which was covering it caught in the hot breath of the soixante-quinze; of guns which were covering it forced back from position to position.
Staggering through the village street came the conquerors of yesterday, their glazed eyes under heavy lids, keeping dogged step from force of long discipline—they who were not to see Paris! French shell-fire kept approaching till shrapnel began to break over the village. Again the three had to take to the cellar, where for a while they heard the rattle of rifle and machine-gun fire and an occasional cheer—a kind of cheer that sounded strangely familiar to Phil. When they came upstairs the figures passing in the village street were no longer in green, but in khaki. The remnants of the little British army which had retreated from Mons was tasting the joy of pursuit.
Everybody in the village was out, lining the road; everybody, from Mère Perigord to infants in arms, displaying the smiles they had been conserving while they had been glaring at the Germans. The children gathered flowers and tossed them to les Anglais before their eyes in the life, looking just as they had looked in the picture papers.
"How do you like being a conquering hero, Bill?" one Anglais called to another, as he stuck a rose in his cap and relit the "fag" cigarette stump which he had been saving behind his ear in the midst of charges and shell-fire. Plodding stoically on, these regulars, taking the day's work as it came, and this was a day's work to their liking. "Are we down-hearted? No!" Every one of them looked at Phil. There was no mistaking him; he must speak English. The lean, tired officers waved their hands in greeting to the young man and two girls who were beaming the welcome of their hearts.
"Sorry we can't stay to tea!" one called merrily.