"Yes, I'll see in time," Eugenia concluded.
Then Barbara crept closer again.
"The moonlight, or something, makes me feel dismal," she confided. "I don't know why, but the moon gives me the blues far more than it ever makes me romantic. Sometimes I wonder if we will ever get back home safely, all of us, without any illness or sorrow or anything," Barbara ended vaguely.
Eugenia could be a remarkably comforting person when she liked.
She made no reply at the moment, only drew the younger girl toward her.
"Now I have something to tell you, Barbara. It is good of you to wish me to be in Brussels with you, but I'm really not much good as a companion. You girls are ever so much happier without me, I feel sure, or I wouldn't desert you."
"Desert us?" Barbara stiffened at once, forgetting the other subject of their conversation.
"You don't mean, Eugenia Peabody, that you have decided to give up the Red Cross work and go back home? You, of all of us! I simply won't believe it. Why, I thought you were the most devoted, the most——"
Eugenia laughed half-heartedly. "I didn't say I was going home, Barbara," she protested. "But you are right in thinking I mean to give up my Red Cross work, at least if I am allowed to resign. I don't know why, but recently I don't seem to feel the same fondness for nursing. I kind of dread a great many things about it."