“I surrender, Barbara, in all meekness! But really, it is not necessary to produce so many arguments for doing a thing you are simply crazy to do. You merely wish to gratify your curiosity. You know, I don’t believe that we should be engaging in frivolous pursuits like paying visits upon strangers, when we are here in Europe for such serious purposes. Still, I don’t suppose that an occasional break really interferes with our work.”
“Certainly not,” Barbara finished with emphasis. Then she skipped along beside her taller companion like a small girl endeavoring to keep up with a large one. “Besides, Eugenia, think of how wonderful the news is! The Germans are actually retiring of their own accord! There hasn’t been any fighting in our neighborhood for over a week now. No wonder the Countess Amélie feels like having guests at last. François says that she has not been so cheerful since the war began. I don’t know how you feel, Eugenia, but Mildred and Nona and I think it a wonderful experience to see the inside of an old French home which was in existence long before the French Revolutionary days. It seems that this Countess has never even gone to Paris, nor visited anyone except her old family friends who are also members of the nobility. She won’t even acknowledge that France is today a great Republic. She still tries to live like the grande dames of the days before the Revolution.”
Eugenia fairly sniffed. Also she held her shoulders straighter and her head higher.
“Then she must be a very absurd old woman and I am more than ever sure that I shall not like her. The idea of not realizing that a republic is the only just form of government in the world! I wouldn’t be anything except an American——”
Once more Barbara smiled, patting the older girl’s arm soothingly.
“Of course you wouldn’t, my dear, and neither would any of the rest of us, except perhaps Nona. She is really an old-time aristocrat, although she would rather perish than think so. But just the same I don’t see why one should not be interested in contrasts in this life! What could be greater than the gulf between this old French aristocrat and us?”
“What indeed?” answered Eugenia, more wisely than she then knew.
For at this moment the interest which the four girls had been feeling in their new hostess temporarily died away.
According to Nona’s and Barbara’s suggestion, and in spite of the distance, they were approaching the chateau through the woods, which the two girls had visited the day after their arrival in this portion of southern France.
November had come, but the autumn was so far deliciously warm. Difficult it was to imagine a world at war on this afternoon and in this particular forest! For, by some freak of fortune, this woodland had so far escaped the ravages of the German shells. Over it and around it they had ploughed their devastating way. But until now the birds prepared their winter nests here undisturbed in the tall trees, and the pool of Melisande remained unbroken save by its own ripples.