Part 38 (1/2)

”Maybe, but I'll go further and say that the house itself invited us to come in. I've an idea that a house doesn't like to be abandoned and lonely. It prefers to be filled with people and to hear the sounds of voices and laughter. These old European houses which have sheltered generation after generation must be the happiest houses of all. I'd like to live in a house like this and I'd like for a house like this to like me. It would help life a lot for a house and its occupant to be satisfied with each other.”

”We feel that way in England about our old country houses,” said Carstairs, ”and you'll come to it, too, in America, after a while.”

”No doubt, but will you have a little more of this champagne? Only a half gla.s.s. I don't believe the owner, who must be a fine French gentleman, would ever begrudge it to us.”

”Just a little. We're rather young for champagne, we three, but we've been doing men's work, and we've been through men's dangers. I wonder what they're doing along the Strand, tonight, John!”

”The same that they've been doing every night for the last hundred years. But you listen to me, Carstairs, old England will have to wake up. This war can't be won by dilettantes.”

”Oh, she'll wake up. Don't you worry. It's not worth while to get excited.”

”To take a serious view of a serious situation is not to grow excited.

You Britishers often make me tired. To pretend indifference in the face of everything is obviously an affectation, and becomes more offensive than boasting.”

”All right, I won't resent it. Here, John, take another piece of this cold ham. I didn't know they had such fine ham in France.”

”They've a lot of splendid things in France,” retorted John, in high, good humor, ”and we'll find it out fast. I'm thinking the French soldiers will prove a good deal better than some people say they are, and this chateau is certainly fine. It must have been put here for our especial benefit.”

”Now that we've eaten all we want and our clothing is dried thoroughly,”

said Carstairs, ”I suggest that we put out the fire. There isn't much smoke, but it goes up that flue and escapes somewhere. Even in the night the Germans might see it.”

”Good advice, Carstairs,” said Wharton. ”You're as intelligent sometimes as the Americans are all the time.”

”Pleasant children you Americans.”

”Some day we'll save the aged English from destruction.”

”Meanwhile we'll wait.”

They extinguished the fire, carefully put away all the dishes they had used, restored everything to its pristine neatness, and then the three yawned prodigiously.

”Bedrooms next,” said Carstairs.

”Do you propose that we spend the night here,” said Wharton.

”That's my idea. We're worn out. We've got to sleep, somewhere. No use breaking ourselves down, and we've found the chateau here waiting for us.”

”What about the Germans?”

”We'll have to take our chances. War is nothing but a chain of chances, so far as your life is concerned.”

The other two wanted to be persuaded, and they yielded readily, but John insisted upon one precaution.

”Old houses like this are likely to have isolated chambers,” he said.

”Some of them I suppose have their secret rooms, and if we can find such a place, lock the door on ourselves, and go to sleep in it we're not likely to wake up prisoners of the Germans.”

Wharton and Carstairs approved of his suggestion, and they examined the house thoroughly. John concluded from the presence of all the furniture and the good order in which they found everything that the departure of its owners had been hasty, perhaps, too, with the expectation of a return on the morrow.