And Belinda wondered! She had listened to the patriotic speeches of the wounded Frenchmen for months. She had considered herself almost wholly French. She had scarcely endured, because it was her duty, these wounded Germans.
But they were her mother's people. She remembered clearly her visits to Germany and how kind her cousins—these two boys, Carl Baum and Paul Genau—had been to her. They had half quarreled over her at her last visit, indeed, being at that age when boys are apt to be much "taken" with pretty cousins.
The family life of the Genaus and the Baums, as she had seen it, was ideal. They were quiet, humdrum, peaceable folk, possessing all the sturdy virtues of the Teutonic race. Who would have thought that when next she should meet her two playmates they would be in the habiliments of war?
She waited in some perturbation of mind for what should next befall her. She was actually glad that her personal possessions had been left in old Minerva's cottage. There was nothing belonging to her here at the hospital, she told herself, to arouse suspicion.
But she forgot one thing—one very important thing.
She heard footsteps without once more. The sentinel grounded arms. In came a young man, smiling, handsome in a keen-featured way, and brisk. Carl was behind him.
Belinda would not have known her cousin, Paul Genau, he had so changed. Unlike Carl, his military service—both before and since the beginning of the war—had vastly altered him. He was plainly one of those young Germans who ape the junker class—who absorb and seemingly thrive upon Prussian militarism.
"By the great god Thor!" ejaculated this breezy young sergeant-major. "It surely is! I believed Carl here had quite lost his wits—I did upon my life, Cousin. Welcome to Germany, dear Belinda!"
He caught her unexpectedly in his arms and imprinted a kiss upon her cheek before she could defend herself.
"Hold on!" growled Carl from the background. "That is an unfair advantage. 'Linda is my cousin as well as yours—and she did not welcome me so."