However, the girls had only started on their return journey when some one came hobbling along behind them.
It was François and he carried a basket on his arm.
Nona inquired a shorter way home and the old man explained that as he was on the way to their house, he would like to be permitted to accompany them. There was a road that was only half as long as the route they had taken.
Naturally the girls were glad enough for the old man’s escort, especially as he was full of reminiscences of the neighborhood which he loved dearly to impart.
In his basket was another offering from the countess. Old François explained that if she had passed them without seeming to notice their presence, it was not that she intended being unkind. She was lonely and depressed. All her kinspeople were at the front as well as her only son, who was the last to bear the family name. Moreover, they had been poor before, but now that all their farm people had gone off to the war and there was no one left to work in the fields, where was a single franc to come from? Besides, were not the Germans so near the line that if the worst took place they would overrun the countryside and destroy the little that was left?
Finally the girls discovered that the old man and his mistress were actually the only two persons remaining in the old chateau. When François was compelled to be away the countess had only her great dog for protection.
The picture was a pathetic one and Nona and Barbara felt less aggrieved by the older woman’s coldness. One could hardly wonder that she did not care to meet or talk to strangers.
“But aren’t you afraid to be here on this great place alone, François?” Nona asked, more to persuade the old man to go on talking than because she was interested in her question.
The old peasant shook his head enigmatically. But he was a garrulous old fellow and immensely pleased with Nona’s ability to speak French.
“We will be in no danger,” he said, bobbing his head and then shrugging his old shoulders until all his bent-over body seemed to be moving at once, “even if the barbarians should devastate our land. If this should happen the American girls must flee to old François for protection. They could say what they liked about the Red Cross insuring them from danger, he knew a better way.” But what the way was François would not tell, although both girls teased and implored him to confide in them all the way back to the “House with the Blue Front Door.”