CHAPTER XVIII
Reconciliation
"I AM so sorry you have been ill, Bianca."
Carlo Navara had come into Bianca's room a few moments before with Mrs. Clark and now Sonya had gone out again leaving them for a few moments alone.
It was a fairly warm spring day and yet there was a little fire in Bianca's room, for the rooms in the old Rhine castle were big and bare and cold, with stone floors.
Bianca wore a little tea-gown of a warm blue woolen material and had a tea table with a tray upon it just in front of her.
She was pouring tea for her guest at the moment he made his last speech.
"Oh, there has been nothing serious the matter with me, Carlo," she returned. "I was simply tired and have been having a delightful rest. I believe when I arrived I said that I should hate to be ill in this dreary old building, but since things so seldom turn out as one expects I have really enjoyed it. Besides, I have promised Sonya that as soon as it is possible I shall go back to the United States and to school. The Red Cross experience in Europe has been a wonderful one, but now, as I am no longer useful here I must take up the duty, I turned my back upon. It is not going to be easy, Carlo, to settle down to a school girl's life after the excitement of war work in Europe. Yet I have the consolation of realizing that I am only going to do what many of our soldiers will do. Lots of the younger men have told me that if their families can afford to send them to college on their return they feel the need of education as they never felt it before coming abroad."