"His chance will come. Again I say to myself, Miss Julie, what luck I had in arriving at Chastel!"
"And it was lucky for us, too. We need your courage and resource, Mr. John. I know that Philip cannot come today or tonight and perhaps not tomorrow."
"In that event, what plans have you, Miss Julie?"
"To remain in Chastel. We have an excellent hotel here at our service, and as we're behind the French army we're in perfect safety."
John opened his lips to speak, but changed his intention and did not say what was in his thought. He said instead:
"Antoine is looking unusually important. He is going to serve us wine. He has mineral water, too. Will you take a little of it with your wine? It's a white wine, and the water improves it for me."
"Yes, Mr. John, I'll take mine the same way."
Any dinner, although it may have a flavor which the food and drink themselves, no matter how good, cannot give, must draw to an end, and when the dessert had been served and eaten John looped back the heavy curtain still further and looked out at the white cataract.
"The snowfall will certainly continue the rest of the day," he said, "and perhaps all through the night. Suppose we go to the smoking-room. Antoine and Suzanne must eat also. It's their hour now."
"That is true, Mr. John. The smoking-room is a good place, but I'm afraid that you have no cigarette."