“I think it, Madame?—I think nothing. That is for the generals of France, who will begin presently. Why should I do their work when there is good coffee at the Niederwald, and Madame Lefort is happy there? I am the man in the fauteuil. When the play begins I will applaud or hiss as the mood takes me.”
He dipped his bread into the bowl and made a pretence of eating ravenously. But her own cup was unlifted. She gazed over the valley with eyes full of pity for France and her people, and the children of the woods.
“I cannot believe it,” she said earnestly. “I cannot believe that men are to die to-day—”
“Do not think of it, my child. They die every day. Is our coffee less good for that? Ask Monsieur when he comes home to-night—”
She buried her face in her hands.
“God grant that he will come home, Monsieur Picard!”
The old man stood up and bared his head to the generous sunshine.
“Amen to that, my child—God save all dear to us.”
For a little while there was silence between them, but anon, a thunderous report of cannon began to resound on their own side of the stream, and at the first discharge both rose to their feet. When the smoke from the guns had rolled away they could see the river again. Little dark figures, the figures of Bavarians, were on its banks now. All about the old mill in the marsh, puffs of white smoke were making clouds for the cloudless day.