At last, when Barbara and Mildred felt compelled to leave, Eugenia proposed that she and Captain Castaigne walk over to the farmhouse with them. She did not feel that she could wait for another day before seeing Nona.
Nona and Sonya had just been in a few moments and taken off their wraps when the others arrived. And Nona need have felt no nervousness over Eugenia’s attitude toward Sonya. Many things had happened to broaden Eugenia’s point of view since her arrival in Europe to act as a Red Cross nurse. Besides, few persons could fail to feel anything but sympathy and admiration for the beautiful Russian woman, whose life had come so near closing in tragedy.
There was not a great deal of food at the farmhouse, nevertheless Eugenia and Captain Castaigne remained to dinner.
Barbara and Mildred retired to act as cooks, while Eugenia and Sonya fell to talking together, and Nona and Captain Castaigne.
In the course of their talk Nona remembered to inquire for Lieutenant Hume, who was Captain Castaigne’s friend. At last she might be able to hear real news of the young British officer.
By good fortune Captain Castaigne had received a letter written by him in the same post that had brought Barbara’s and Mildred’s letters.
“Lieutenant Hume had gone to the United States and was living at the present time in Florida. He had appeared to have contracted a fatal illness during his imprisonment, but his letter had said he was feeling ever so much better.
“I can’t say how glad I am,” Captain Castaigne continued. “There was never a braver fellow in the world than Robert Hume. And besides, if he should happen to die just now, it would be particularly hard on his family. You see, Hume’s older brother, the one with the title, has just been killed in the Dardanelles. Robert Hume is Lord Hume now, I believe, and the English think more of titles than we do in Republican France,” the French officer concluded.
“But I thought,” Nona commented stupidly, “that Lieutenant Hume was a gardener’s son and had been educated by friends who were interested in him.”
Then Nona stopped, because Captain Castaigne was half smiling and half frowning over her information. Moreover, Nona suddenly remembered that what she was saying was founded partly on information and the rest on her own fancy.