"Don"t smile in that way!" she pleaded. "We"ll lock him in a closet and I"ll stand guard. That will give you time to run for it--or some other plan--anything so they will not get you--please, please!"
"Very moving picture-ish that, Helen," he said. "No. I"ll go with von Eichborn to see his General and explain that an officer invading a private house struck me and I struck him back, that being a custom of my country and I being ignorant of the customs of foreign countries.
Come!" As he led the way out of doors he added to von Eichborn: "Some men in your position might want to forget the whole experience."
"Not that you struck me when in uniform! Never!" von Eichborn said.
"My uncle will punish that. You will be shot, as Belgians were for the same offence."
Helen followed them. Henriette was already in the grounds, having come down from her room by the other stairway. Thus von Stein, alighting from his car, had the whole group before him as he approached. At sight of him, von Eichborn murmured something under his breath and clicked his heels together as he saluted.
"So there you are, you scoundrel!" called out the General.
Von Eichborn knew how to deal with the rage of an uncle who had no son of his own.
"Yes, sir," he said humbly. "I came to interrogate these two young women about this man"s case."
"Without leave!" put in von Stein sternly.
"Time was important. The Major said you would not need me. You were busy."
"No excuse!" blurted von Stein.
"Sorry, sir!" replied von Eichborn. "Then this man returned to the house and struck me with his fist!"
"You struck an officer!" Von Stein turned on Phil, Prussian indignation overwhelming every other idea. "Why didn"t you shoot him?"
he demanded of von Eichborn.
"He took away my revolver when I was down and stunned," explained von Eichborn.
"Baby!" roared von Stein. "And you--" to Phil, "you struck an officer!
That is settled!"
"After he had struck at me!" replied Phil steadily.
"Yes, at his face with his gloves!" put in Helen, stepping forward and looking squarely at the General. "I saw it. And he was not here to interrogate us. He wanted to go upstairs where my sister was. Then our cousin came."
Von Stein gave the two girls a scrutinising look. There was truth in Helen"s eyes as surely as Henriette was beautiful. He liked Helen, not having much use for beautiful women, being unhappily married to one.
But aside from her evidence he knew that his nephew was lying, as he had before to get himself out of a sc.r.a.pe.
"Did you try to go upstairs? Answer!" he said to von Eichborn, who understood from experience that confession was best when his uncle spoke in that fashion.
"Yes, sir!"
"And you struck at him?"
"Yes, he insulted me."
"After his insult!" interrupted Phil. "I----"
"Silence!" von Stein roared to Phil. "I"ll attend to your case later.
Now, as for you," to von Eichborn, "first, aide of a division general absent without leave in time of action; second, billeting himself without consent of his superior; third, wasting his superior"s time with a set of foolish charges against a civilian for a mean personal motive; fourth, an offence to two young women alone in a house. All entirely in keeping with previous reprehensible conduct, without the excuse of drunkenness this time."
Thus Prussian system established the case, while von Eichborn stood stock-still, heels together, and trembling.
"You have played on my sensibilities for the last time," continued von Stein. "No matter how your mother pleads, you go back to your regiment, where you will have the chance to die like a soldier if there"s any good in you. Go to the car!"
Von Eichborn saluted and obeyed.
"You have seen Prussian justice done," von Stein said, turning to Phil.
"But you--you struck a Prussian officer with your fist!" His anger grew as he thought of the offence against the military caste.
"You--you go to the car, too!"
"The custom of my country!" said Phil, without moving. "We have our code of personal honour as well as you. I could not have done otherwise and ever looked my friends in the face. When they hear the story and your view, sir, well----"
"The barbarians will call us Huns!" von Stein interrupted savagely.
"Yes, I should think so!"
It seemed unreal, this situation. But there was the Foreign Office in Berlin and the instructions from the Most High since the whirlwind of American indignation about Belgium. And this young man acted as if he were somebody of importance.
"I"ll show you what Prussian clemency is," said von Stein. "Because you are a foreigner and ignorant, I will overlook the offence. Keep to the grounds, as I told you, and n.o.body will interfere with you!"
After he had gone, sitting on the back seat of the car with the expression of one who was conscious of an act of n.o.ble toleration, with von Eichborn on the front seat beside the chauffeur, the three cousins stared at one another wonderingly, Henriette"s eyes radiant of her appreciation.
"You saved my life, first, and this time----"
She did not need to finish the phrase except with her eyes.
Helen, whose relief had been so personal, rallied herself a little nervously with a return to banter.
"That was surely a bit from the movies, serio-comic!" she said. "Still another cartoon of our hero"s progress in Europe! We"ll call it, "And he shot his strong right arm out and the villain bit the dust.""
"Helen, one of these days I"ll----" Phil fumbled for words in his embarra.s.sment.
"Do something else grand and I"ll make a cartoon of that, too!" she said as she went into the house. When she looked into the mirror again it was with smiling self-congratulation. "Plain face, you were of some use once, anyway!" she said.
CHAPTER XXII
VICTORY!
A Prussian command had been given. The three would be undisturbed in their retreat as long as they remained within the grounds of the chateau. Of itself this was no great hardship; its irritation deep from the fact that it was by Prussian command.
Any sense of awkwardness in their personal situation had pa.s.sed. It seemed quite natural that they should be there together with Jacqueline and her saucepans. Their story as a story halted, even as the heartbeats of mankind halted, while it waited for the result of the Marne.
How quiet the house! How quiet the shaded paths! The roads were empty now of all save transport feeding man and gun and of ambulances returning with German wounded. Quiet here and h.e.l.l far away over the hills, where the destiny of France and the world was being settled in the toss with death. Be it the three, or the children and the women and the old men in the village, the personal thought had been submerged in straining inquiry of how the battle was going.