Finding him obdurate, however, she resorted to argument.
“It doesn’t invalidate an engagement,” she said rather brusquely, “for a man to borrow the money for an engagement ring. If it did there would be fewer engagements. If you want to borrow a German prisoner for the same purpose the principle is the same.”
He seemed to be weakening.
“I’d like to do it—if only to see her face,” he said slowly. “Not but what it’s a risk. He’s a good-looking devil.”
In the end, however, he agreed, and the last we saw of them he was driving the German ahead, with a grenade in one hand and his revolver in the other, and looking happier than he had looked for days.
Almost immediately after that I felt Tish’s hand on my arm. We turned and went back toward V——.
Military experts have been rather puzzled by our statement that the Germans did not reënter V—— that night, but remained just outside, and that we reached the church again without so much as a how-do-you-do from any of them. I believe the general impression is that they feared a trap. I think they are rather annoyed to learn that there was a period of several hours during which they might safely have taken the town; in fact, the irritable general who was married to the colonel’s brother was most unpleasant about it. When everything was over he came to Paris to see us, and he was most unpleasant.
“If you wanted to take the damned town, why didn’t you say so?” he roared. “You came in with a long story about a nephew, but it’s my plain conviction, madam, that you were flying for higher game than your nephew from the start.”
Tish merely smiled coldly.
“Perhaps,” she said in a cryptic manner. “But, of course, in these days of war one must be very careful. It is difficult to tell whom to trust.”