"What is it all about, dear children?" asked Odette.
Then they clapped their hands and said that their brother had just landed from his island and was up-stairs washing himself, and that he had received his mother's permission to enlist.
"To enlist!" exclaimed Odette. "Why, how old is he, the poor little fellow?"
"He is almost seventeen," said the eldest girl. "Papa is dead, he must replace him."
"And what does the big brother say to that?"
"Oh, he is delighted. He had begged to enlist as soon as mobilization was declared, but papa would not consent; he said: 'You will go with your class, when the time comes; it will not be long.'"
The big brother appeared, coming down-stairs. He was a fine boy, delicate, surprisingly like his mother's portrait, painted in her youth, which hung above the great sofa. He rushed past like a bomb, exclaiming: "I must hurry to the recruiting-office!" No more was said about the dead father, and yet Odette knew that he was adored by all his family. Only to the governess, a confidential person well on in years, did Odette say a word about the event.
"It is a great honor," said the governess.
"Do they know how he was killed?"
"A bomb, which at the same time killed seventeen men who were near him."