"Same old farceur, too!" mused Georges. "Now, what the mischief are you doing here? Oh, you are staying at Morteyn?"
"Yes."
"I—er—I used to visit another house—er—near by. You know the Marquis de Nesville?" asked Georges, innocently.
"I? Oh yes."
"You have—perhaps you have met Mademoiselle de Nesville?"
"Yes," said Jack, shortly.
"Oh."
There was a silence. Jack shuffled his booted toes in his stirrups; Georges looked out across the valley.
In the valley the vapours were rising; behind the curtain of shredded mist the landscape lay hilly, nearly treeless, cut by winding roads and rank on rank of spare poplars. Farther away clumps of woods appeared, and little hillocks, and now, as the air cleared, the spire of a church glimmered. Suddenly a thin line of silver cut the landscape beyond the retreating fog. The Saar!
"Where are the Prussians?" asked Jack, breaking the silence.