Toasts were offered, acknowledged, compliments said, glasses emptied.
The General of Division Delisle spoke diffidently of quarters for himself and his military family, and was cordially reassured by the Countess.
There was plenty of room for all. It was evident, too, that they had ridden far and must be hungry. Servants were summoned, rooms in the east wing thrown open to the air; the kitchen stirred up to increased activity for the emergency; the officers piloted to the rooms assigned them.
Down on the drive a shadowy escort of hussars waited until an orderly appeared, shining, with his breast torch, the path to the stables.
Then three sky-guns jolted up out of the darkness and halted; a company of infantry tramped by toward the garage; the horses of the staff were led away by mounted gendarmes; and three big military touring cars, their hoods and glass windows grey with dust, began to purr and pant and crawl slowly after the infantry.
Everywhere sentries were being set, taking post on every terrace, every path and road, and before the doorways of the great house.
A single candle burned in the chapel. Beside it sat Sister Eila, intent on her breviary, her lips moving silently as she bent above it.
The fifth part of the breviary, Matins, Lauds, and the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, absorbed her.
The whole of the breviary services, the duty of publicly joining or of privately reading aloud so as to utter with the lips every word, is generally incumbent upon all members of religious orders.
But Sisters of Charity, forming as they do an active religious order, are excepted.