Much of the verbiage and all the argument was lost on old Jerome. He was thinking of his sons and poured out another glass for himself and the Baron. “It’s a grievous business, this war,” he sighed. “You must feel that as much as I.”
The Baron did not miss the allusion, blinked a moment, for what is one to say to a man who has two sons, one of whom is dead and forever gone, and the other a prisoner, with uncertain prospects. He concluded that the most comforting thing was to talk of his own son. Besides, he preferred to.
“At last we have news of Georges. He has written to us, you will never divine from whence!”
He waited a moment, but old Jerome was not good at guessing. In the scullery the wringer was no longer creaking as it turned, and the splashing of water and the soft flop of the clothes into the tin pail had ceased.
“He has written from Monte Carlo. It seems that the army surgeons found he was making himself a bad chest, and sent him to the south for convalescence. He is being marked inapt for service, but he still wishes to do his part, and they will put him in this French Mission with the English Army as Officer-Interpreter. One day or another, we may see him here, if he is attached to a division that passes this way.”
In the scullery Madeleine was standing over the wringer, allowing herself to smile ever so little. Within her breast her blood was dancing to the tune “I knew it, I knew it!” Now, that terribly serious Georges of the day of mobilization that she did not understand and for whom she could do nothing would be changed back to the gay Georges (Monte Carlo, she had heard him speak of it, could see and hear him doing so now) that she did understand, and who would want her. The Baron was talking of other things now, of how the French would take it easy, and how the English would come in and finish the War. It was quite their turn. One had made sufficient sacrifices. Could Jerome let him have—this, that, and the other? She paid little heed. Her father bargained a bit, then acquiesced. She thought it fitting, when the Baron rose to go, to come to the door of the kitchen and say:
“Au revoir, Monsieur le Baron.”
“Au revoir, Madeleine, remain young and pretty, it is all one asks of you!”
* * * *
She on her side asked little. She would get Georges back. She was sure now. The days might pass, nothing happen, no news come, but she was sure, sure as though he had written giving the date of his arrival.