The Countess Charlotta hummed the line of a popular version of the national anthem of Luxemburg at the present time.
"Prussians will we not become." Then as she could not help being confidential she added:
"But suppose, suppose you were going to be forced into a German marriage, what, what would you do? I hate it, hate it, and yet—"
"Well, nothing on earth would induce me to consider it," Major Jimmie answered, his brown eyes shining and his face a deeper crimson. "You must forgive me, but you know I can't see anything straight about Germany yet and the thought of a girl like you marrying one of the brutes,—but perhaps I ought not to say anything as we are strangers and I might be tempted into saying too much."
"You could not say too much," Charlotta returned encouragingly. "I wish you would give me your advice. If I had been a boy I would have run away and fought against Germany and been killed, or if I had not been killed perhaps my family would have cast me off. I am thinking of running away anyhow, only I don't know just where to go. Do you think I could get to America without being discovered? Perhaps I might dress as a soldier. You see I can speak English and French and German. I had to learn languages as a child even when I hated studying and now I'm glad. Then you know I can ride and shoot pretty well. I don't know why my father ever consented to have me taught, save that it amused him a little to have me show the tastes he would have liked in a son."
Major Hersey felt himself growing a little confused, as if he were losing his sense of proportion. He was not much given to reading, but he remembered two delightful romances, one "A Lady of Quality," the other "The Prisoner of Zenda." Here he was finding the two stories melting into one in the person of the girl beside him. Well the situation was surprising even a little thrilling!
Yet Major Jimmie knew what his own ideals required of him.
"I am sorry, I am afraid I don't dare offer you advice. Haven't you some woman who is your friend to whom you could appeal? There is Mrs. Clark; I have been knowing her some time when I was in camp not far from her Red Cross hospital near Château-Thierry. Why not talk to her? Still, if I were you I would not try running away, certainly not to the United States. It is pretty far and you could never make it. Excuse me, but you know it is amusing to hear you talk of dressing as a soldier. I am afraid you would not get away with the disguise five minutes. Wonder if you have half an idea what a soldier has to undergo before he can get aboard a transport for home."
The young American officer laughed and then his expression grew serious.
"Please don't say a thing like that again, even in jest and please don't even think it. I know a girl who has been brought up as you have been thinks she knows something about the world, when in reality she knows nothing, anyhow, nothing that is ugly or real. I say, here comes Mrs. Clark now, why not ask her to help you?"