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"Will she come?" "Yes in time." Sir Thorald relapsed into a rambling, monotonous account of some military movement near Wissembourg until Jack spoke again: "Yes I know; tell me about Alixe." "Yes Alixe," muttered Sir Thorald "is she here? I was wrong; I saw her at Cologne; that was all, Jack nothing more." "There is more," said Jack; "tell me." "Yes, there is more. I saw that that she loved me.
"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash the horse?" "Look at him, Jack," she muttered. "I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You you are wounded, are you? there on the neck " "It is his blood on my breast."
But she was a born flirt; the virus was bred in the bone, and after the first half-mile she opened her batteries her eyes as a matter of course on Jack. What she got for her pains was a little sermon ending, "See here, Molly three years ago you played the devil with me until I kissed you, and then you were furious and threatened to tell Sir Thorald.
Somebody cried, "A telegram for you, Ricky!" There was a patter of feet on the terrace, a chorus of voices: "What is it, Ricky?" "Must you go at once?" "Whatever is the matter?" The young German soldier, very pale, turned to the circle of lamp-lit faces. "France and Germany I I " "What?" cried Sir Thorald, violently. "War was declared at noon to-day!"
Alixe von Elster and Barbara Lisle went first; there were tears and embraces, and au revoirs and aufwiedersehens. Little Alixe blanched and trembled when Sir Thorald bent over her, not entirely unconscious of the havoc his drooping mustache and cynical eyes had made in her credulous German bosom.
Everything was intact, except the conservatory window and his daughter's shoulder. Both could be mended but his box! ah, that, if lost, could never be replaced. Jack's throat was hard and dry. A lump came into it, and he swallowed with a shrug, and flicked at a fly on the headstall. A vision of Sir Thorald, bending over little Alixe, came before his eyes. "Pah!" he muttered, in disgust.
And he took off his peaked cap, adding, as he saw the others, "Messieurs, mesdames," and nodded his curly, blond head and smiled. "Don't apologize read your telegrams!" said Lady Hesketh; "dear me! dear me! if they take you two away and leave Thorald, I shall I shall yawn!"
"I'll stay, too," said Sir Thorald, eagerly; "Cecil and Molly can take the children to Paris; Madame de Morteyn, you really should go also." She leaned back and shook her head decisively. "Then you will both come, you and Madame de Morteyn?" urged Lady Hesketh of the vicomte. The old man hesitated. His wife smiled.
She knew he could not leave in the face of the enemy; she had been the wife of this old African campaigner for thirty years, and she knew what she knew. "Helen " he began. "Yes, dear, we will both stay; the city is too hot in July," she said; "Sir Thorald, some coffee? No more? Betty, you want another muffin? they are there by Cecil.
"They say we ought not to miss this train," said Cecil, coming from the stables and flourishing a whip; "they say the line may be seized for government use exclusively in a few hours." The old house-keeper, Madame Paillard, nodded and pointed to her son, the under-keeper. "Oui, mamam!" "Then hurry," said Lady Hesketh. "Thorald, call the others."
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