Part 1 (2/2)

A chorus of delight went up from the four youngsters on one side of the table, and Master Billy Dashwood, aged eight, clapped his hands and overturned the milk jug.

”Billy, Billy!” said his mother reprovingly. ”When will you learn to behave yourself and to take care?”

”When will you let me join the Boy Scouts?” retorted her youngest born, gazing up at the ceiling with the face of an innocent cherub, and Mrs.

Dashwood was obliged to smile as she looked at her eldest son.

”Your father will be very pleased, Bob,” she said. ”There have been Dashwoods in the regiment for generations, and it is nice to feel that both my boys will be in a battalion in their father's brigade.”

”You should be very proud, madame, that yours is such a military family,” said a young man who sat opposite to the children with his back to the tall windows. ”Let me see, you will now have four members serving at this great crisis?”

”Yes, it is an honour of which I am indeed more than proud, Monsieur Van Drissel,” said his hostess.

”But Uncle Eric doesn't count--he's only at the War Office, and they do nothing there,” interposed the irrepressible Billy.

”I shall send you out of the room if you're rude,” said his mother. ”The War Office is a most important branch.”

It was a pleasant room in a charming house, whose grounds sloped down to the ornamental water in Regent's Park, and if one had not known it, one might have imagined it to be one of those countless English homes into which the war had not penetrated.

Captain Bob, looking very different now from the crumpled figure at the bottom of the trench, had escaped death from the sniper's bullet by a fraction of an inch, but he had made quick recovery, and before his month's sick furlough was at an end he was already secretly yearning to get back again. He knew that there was a great push in contemplation, and his only fear was that he might not be in it.

Everything in that room spoke of comfort and money, and everything was very English, except the young man with his back to the windows, and the young woman with the dark eyes on the opposite side of the table.

Lieutenant Van Drissel, of the Belgian army, whose wound, received in the fighting outside Dixmude long months before, obstinately refused to heal, found himself in very pleasant quarters, thanks to the hospitality of Mrs. Dashwood, who had also given his sister an asylum as French governess to the small fry.

Like Captain Bob, he was in khaki, but the contrast between the two officers was very striking. The one was lean and athletic in every line of his figure, with laughing grey eyes in a handsome face; the other, a stolid, fair-haired Fleming, whose square visage would have been rather colourless and commonplace but for the pleasant smile which showed his white teeth.

He followed Mrs. Dashwood's every movement with the expression of a grateful dog, and waited upon her hand and foot, doing his best to justify his presence there.

”Ah, you have better luck than I, Dashwood,” he said in perfect English, with a doleful shrug of his shoulders.

”Don't worry, Van Drissel; keep smiling, as my fellows sing,” laughed Captain Bob encouragingly. ”Your turn will come, and we shall both march into Berlin one of these days.”

”It is a long time,” said the Belgian lieutenant gravely. ”Even Ottilie here loses heart,” and he looked across the table at his sister.

Mademoiselle Ottilie, as dark as her brother was fair, heaved a deep sigh and made a funny little gesture with her hands. ”For myself, I dread to go back to poor Belgium,” she murmured in broken English. ”I wish it might be possible that perhaps I might stay here for evaire--you are all to me so kind.”

”Mamma,” said Billy with a perfectly grave face as he mimicked her accent, ”I wish it might be possible that perhaps I could have that last piece of toast, eh?”

”Billy, go out of the room,” said Mrs. Dashwood severely, but Mademoiselle Ottilie threw an impulsive arm round the young monkey's neck, and looked appealingly at his mother.

”Oh, no, please not, madame. He is so young,” she interposed.

”Well,” said Captain Bob, rising, ”I think it's the weather that has given you the hump, old chap. Still raining,” and he glanced at the windows. ”What do you say to a game of billiards? I'll play you three hundred up if you like.”

”With all my heart,” replied Van Drissel, getting up with a limp and opening the door for Mrs. Dashwood, and the two officers went into the billiard-room, whence they were no more seen for a couple of hours.

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