Pierre Nesle took a step forward and saluted.
“I will go with you, if you permit it, mademoiselle. It is perhaps in a little way my duty, as I met your father in the war.”
“Thanks a thousand times,” said the girl. “Maman will be glad to know all you can tell her.”
She waved to Brand a merry au revoir.
We stood watching them cross the Grande Place, that tall girl and the two little ones, and Pierre.
Fortune touched Brand on the arm.
“Plucky, that girl,” he said. “Took it without a whimper. I wonder if she cared.”
Brand turned on him rather savagely.
“Cared? Of course she cared. But she had expected it for four years, grown up to the idea. These war children have no illusions about the business. They knew that the odds are in favour of death.”