CHAPTER VIII
The Countess's Story
A FEW days later it had become unnecessary for the little Countess Charlotta to confide her secret to Bianca Zoli, or Sonya, or to any one else at the temporary Red Cross hospital in the capital city of Luxemburg. Already her history had been openly discussed by visitors to the hospital, even by the servants who were assisting with the household work.
It was a well-known fact, apparently, that marriage was being arranged for the youthful countess by her father and aunt to an elderly German nobleman.
Nor was the little countess's opposition to the match, her refusal to consider it as a possibility any more of a secret than the knowledge that no attention was being paid her protests.
Inquiring the name of the girl who might be regarded as the prettiest and the most wilful among the daughters of the noble families of Luxemburg, one undoubtedly would have been told, Charlotta Scherin. During the past four years perhaps her mixture of German and French blood had been a disturbing inheritance.
Shortly after the passing of a portion of the American Army of Occupation through the little country, many were the rumors and talks of political changes and readjustments which would probably take place, but to these the small American Red Cross unit decided to give little heed.
One thing they were obliged to hear, the Grand Duchess Marie Adelaide had not pleased all her subjects by her surrender to German ideas and designs during the recent years when the German army had used her kingdom as a passageway to France.
In spite of her verbal protest against the breaking of the treaty which declared her country neutral, once the Germans had entered her duchy the Grand Duchess had appeared to sympathize with the invaders.