“Besides, don’t let us take a simple circumstance too seriously. I much prefer there be as little discussion as possible of your recent adventure. I mean to speak of this to Mr. Hale when he dines with us tonight and I am sure he will agree with me. We do not wish any gossip in the village, or any chance for the newspapers to get hold of the story.
“I am rather amused over Aunt Patricia. It is my idea that we are to have rather a superior dinner tonight in order to impress this Mr. David Hale, who by the way has an extremely nice name and agreeable manners. Aunt Patricia may protest that our present elegance is a reward to you Camp Fire girls for the simplicity and hard work at our farmhouse on the Aisne, and also to restore me more speedily to health. But I don’t think she is above enjoying our temporary grandeur herself and of showing off just the least little bit to other people. I have also observed that violent as her attacks are upon men in a general fashion, she is always apt to take their side in a personal situation. I never have the least hope of her assuming I am ever right in any argument I may have with my husband. Now she and Captain Burton are determined to send me back to the United States as soon as our stay at Versailles is ended, while I want very much to spend the summer in England before we return home.”
As Mrs. Burton had intended it should be, Bettina’s attention was diverted from her own difficulty.
“Don’t try to explain Aunt Patricia to any one of her present family at this late date,” she replied, smiling reminiscently. “I think your group of Camp Fire girls has come to understand her fairly well by this time. At least we feel we owe your life to the splendid fight she made for your life after you were wounded by the German shell. When both the surgeon from Paris and Captain Burton had no further hope, she would fight on.
“Then think of all she has done for us since our arrival in glorious France, first at our farmhouse on the Aisne and now as guests in this charming French house! Why, we are actually wearing the clothes she has insisted upon having made for us, not only that we may be dressed in a proper holiday fashion to celebrate the approach of peace, but that she may keep her little French dressmaker Marguerite Arnot, her latest protégé, constantly employed. What an artist Marguerite is! If I could persuade her to return to Washington with me, mother would forgive me every fault.
“I suppose you also know that she rented this house in Versailles not alone for our pleasure and because it is such a charming home, but because she heard that Madame Forêt, whom we met at our pension in Paris, had no other income left since the war save the income from this house. She has two little girls to support; both her sons were killed in the war!”
Mrs. Burton nodded.
“Yes, Aunt Patricia’s kindness leaves one nearly defenceless. It is dreadfully difficult sometimes to be forced to disagree with her.”
She was silent a moment and then added:
“Sometimes, do you know, Bettina, I feel it is selfish even to rejoice over the approach of peace! There is still so much sorrow and suffering in the world! Only this morning I received a letter from my sister, Mrs. Webster, saying that her son, Dan Webster, is still a prisoner in Germany. I am glad not to have heard of his imprisonment until the war was over; I suppose now he will be released very soon. Moreover, Yvonne continues to worry over not receiving a letter from her brother, Lieutenant Fleury, although she knows he is only doing border duty with the Army of Occupation. I presume she fears he has not completely recovered from the injury through which Sally Ashton nursed him in such a surprising fashion.”