"They would both be in shirt-sleeves for this cause!" declared the vicar.
"Yes, and perhaps for the cause for which the American fought, too," Phil suggested.
"Very likely. I am proud of them both!" said the vicar.
But he and Mrs. Sanford were proudest of the living Sanford who was going to fight in the cause of the moment. The hour was the living hour of blows. Here was one who was about to strike a blow for a childless pair, who had never so much wanted a son as then in order that they might give him for their country. A son of their blood had come to them, now. They wanted to know more about him, his boyhood, his school-days, and the campaigns of the revolutionary ancestor—everything that put links in the chain of inheritance. Phil complied when he realised the genuineness of their interest, but found himself stumbling in details.
"Father knows everything he did," he said. "In fact, we have his diary; but I confess——"
"Too much ancestor!" put in Helen.
It was the first that she had spoken, and even this exclamation was casual and disinterested. Seated across from him as she had been at the first dinner, her plain part in her plain gown was much the same as then, only she was more subdued. Henriette was by his side, in the same part of beautiful woman and beautiful gown. She added her questions to the vicar's. Madame Ribot's only question was about Peter Smithers.
"We must get him to Europe," she said, when the vicar and Mrs. Sanford were declaring that now Phil's father and mother would surely come to England on their long-promised visit.
"I'd like to see Peter in Europe," said Phil.
"So should I!" declared Helen irresistibly. "I should like to have seen him having a set-to with von Stein."