“Until she has a whim to go somewhere else!” replied Madaleine.
“May I write to you there?”
“I will be glad to hear of your welfare,” answered she discreetly, a slight colour mantling to her cheeks. “Of course, you have been my patient; and, like a good nurse, I should like to know that you were getting on well, without any relapse.”
“I will write to you, then,” said Fritz in those firm, ringing tones of his that clearly intimated he had made a promise which he intended to keep. “And you, I hope, will answer my letters?”
“When I can,” replied the girl; “that is, you know, if the Baroness Stolzenkop does not object.”
“Bother the Baroness Stolzenkop!” said he energetically, and he stretched out his hand to her with a smile. “Promise to write to me,” he repeated.
Madaleine did not say anything; but she returned his smile, and he could feel a slight pressure of her fingers on his, so with this he was perfectly contented for the while.
“Ah, when the war is over!” he exclaimed presently, after a moment’s silence between the two, which expressed more than words would have done perhaps. “Ah, when the war is over!”
“Eh, what?” said the doctor, coming in unexpectedly at that instant and catching the last words.
“I—I—said,” explained Fritz rather confusedly, “that when the war was over, I’d be glad to get home again to my mother and those dear to me;” and he looked at Madaleine as he spoke meaningly.