Outwardly the German family was apparently hospitably disposed to their enemy guests, although they made no pretence of too great friendliness. They saw that the Americans were cared for, that their food was well cooked and served. Yet only the two little girls, Freia and Gretchen, possessed of no bitter memories, were disposed to be really friendly.
And in boyish, American fashion, the two young officers, who were slightly embarrassed by living among a family with whom they had so lately been at war, returned the attitude of admiration and cordiality of the little German maids.
Freia was a slender, grave little girl with sunshiny hair and large, soft blue eyes, and Gretchen like her, only smaller and stouter with two little yellow pigtails, and dimples, in her pink cheeks.
One afternoon Major Jimmie Hersey was sitting alone in a small parlor devoted to his private use and staring at a picture on the mantel.
His work for the day was over, the drill hour was past and the soldiers, save those on special leave, had returned to their barracks.
One could scarcely have said that the young American officer was homesick, for there is something really more desolate than this misfortune. He was without a home anywhere in the world for which he could be lonely. An only son, his mother had died when he had been six months in France.
It was true that he had a sister to whom he was warmly attached, but she had married since her brother's departure for Europe, and for this reason he did not feel as if she belonged to him in the old fashion of the past.
At the moment he was looking at his mother's photograph and thinking of their happy times together when he was a boy. In spite of his present youthful appearance Major James Hersey regarded himself as extremely elderly, what with the experiences of the past years of war in France and his own personal loss, and the fact that he was approaching twenty-five.
Then from thinking of his mother, Jimmie, whose title never concerned him save when he was commanding his men, suddenly bethought himself of the young Countess Charlotta. It was odd how often he recalled a mental picture of her, when they had met but once. He had seen her again, however, on the morning when she had left the hospital at Luxemburg. Then he had watched from a window the carriage which drove her away.
Somehow the young Countess Charlotta in spite of her different surroundings, had struck him as being as lonely as he was.