"And a word from your Cousin Carl, or your Cousin Paul, or from Erard, it seems, and we are lost. Pshaw! Let us not lose our courage. We are Americans, Belinda."
"Oh!" cried the Red Cross nurse under her breath, "I wish we were back in dear America again! I—I am frightened, Frank."
She had to leave him then. She feared some of the others had noted her special attentions to the wounded aviator. Jacob said:
"Ach, Fräulein, it warms my old heart to see your kindness to that brave man. He flies and fights for the Fatherland. He is worthy of any good woman's love."
"I am afraid you are an impudent old man, Jacob," she told him, yet smiling. "You are as bad as my cousins, Carl and Paul. They think of nothing but love making."
"Ach, diese Kinder! But, Love and War—they always go hand in hand."
Belinda must learn what had been done to Erard in way of punishment for his escapade before she sought her bed that night. Carl Baum was disgusted regarding the affair.
"What do you suppose the Herr Lieutenant did?" demanded the corporal of his cousin. "Der schlaue Fuchs recited the Marseillaise for the Herr Lieutenant and—Herr Gott!—with that harelip of his, it was the funniest thing I ever listened to," admitted Carl.
"He presented that ancient hen to the Herr Lieutenant, too. Then he danced—as he swore they do in the sewers and cesspools of Paris. Ach! that Erard of yours is a fine fellow. He knows all the thieves and blackguards in Paris, I have no doubt. You should see him act when he is drunk. The Herr Lieutenant laughed."
This report made Belinda very serious for more than one reason. What Sanderson had told her of Renaud's knowledge of the underworld characters of the French capital and this talk of Carl, seemed to dovetail to make the infirmier a very different person from what she had supposed Erard to be.