Without glancing around Dick naturally recognized the voice. It always amused him to hear Barbara talk of the days when she was little, as she appeared so far from anything else even now.
“You had better go downstairs, little girl, with the other girls;” he commanded. “Yes, it is a wonderful spectacle, but this is no place for you.”
Then hearing her laugh lightly, he did turn around. Assuredly Barbara could not go down to the other girls, since they were assembled on the roof with her, and not only the girls but a third of the people in the pension. They were all talking at once in French fashion.
Dick felt rather helpless.
“I thought I told you to go to the cellar,” he protested. But Barbara paid not the slightest attention to him and the other girls were out of hearing.
She was clutching his left arm excitedly.
Now they could see the aeroplanes that had come out for the defense of Paris circling overhead and firing upon the Zeppelins and farther off in the distance the thunder of cannon could be heard.
“Paris is being wonderfully good to us, isn’t she?” Barbara whispered. “We keep seeing more and more amazing things.”
Dick scoffed. “I thought you pretended to be a coward, Barbara, though it is difficult for me to think of you as one.”
And to this the girl made no answer except, “I don’t believe any one in Paris is seriously frightened. A raid is not the terrible thing everybody feared, at least not one like this.”