“You see, I have been feeling rather homesick for the past few hours, so I mustered up courage to ask our Colonel if Lieutenant Martin and I could come in here to talk to you. I told him, Miss Davis—hope you do not mind—that you and Lieutenant Martin were old childhood friends; kind of boy and girl business, you know the kind. So the Colonel said we might come if I brought Martin along, and if we did not mention the fact to any of the other fellows in our car for fear of starting a riot in your direction. So I dragged Martin with me.” Hugh ended with a perfectly deliberate intention of confusing his superior officer, perhaps in revenge for past severities.
Then he dropped down into a seat between Barbara Thornton and Mollie Drew.
“I say, isn’t this good luck? Anyhow, it is more than I deserve,” he concluded boyishly.
Lieutenant Martin took a place beside Nona. He appeared really more uncomfortable than necessary.
“I should like to court-martial Kelley for that speech, Miss Davis. How can I possibly talk to you with such a beginning?”
CHAPTER IV
With the American Army in France
“BUT, Gene, the hospital is so perfect in every detail! I don’t see how you have managed and it is so fine to be working here in France with you again. But best of all, you don’t seem to have changed and I was afraid——”
Nona ended her speech abruptly, not having intended making this final remark.
Three or four hours before she and Barbara Thornton and the two other Red Cross nurses had arrived at the new hospital, set aside for the care of the American soldiers of which Eugenia, Madame Henri Castaigne was in charge.
For the first two hours Eugenia had been too occupied to do more than greet her old friends and make the acquaintance of the new girls. But since dinner she had been showing the four of them over the hospital.