XVIII

XVIII

“Absolutelynothing further so far,” said the Colonel, standing with his back to the fire in Mrs Dare’s sitting-room, as she handed him a cup of tea. “All they can say is that quite a dozen of our R.A.M.C.’s of various grades have never turned up since Landrecies, and they believe they were all taken in a bunch. And that seems to me to improve the chances of Con’s being all safe and sound. We shall hear from him before long, you’ll see.”

“It is sore waiting,” said Mrs Dare.

“So many have not even the chance of doing that. The lists are again very heavy, I’m sorry to say.”

“And we are still falling back?”

“Still retiring, but you’ll see we’ll stop before long,”—and then there came a ring at the bell, and presently the door opened and there stood in the doorway a burly figure whom neither of them recognised, and behind it the concerned face of the maid whose attempt at announcement had been forestalled.

The newcomer was tall and broad, and something about his face seemed familiar to both Mrs Dare and the Colonel, and yet they were sure they had never set eyes on it before. For it was most decidedly a face calculated to impress itself on the memory. To Mrs Dare it suggested the late Emperor of the French, but with more alert and wide-awake eyes. It made the Colonel think of Victor Emmanuel the First, of Italy.

“Well, well?” said the stranger, and then they knew him.

“Good heavens, Rhenius! What are you playing at? You gave me quite a shock. I took you for theghost of Victor Emmanuel,” jerked the Colonel half-angrily.

“And I thought you were Napoleon III come to life again,” smiled Mrs Dare, as she poured him out a cup of tea.

“Ah-ha! So you accorded me promotion on bothsides——”

“If you’d call it promotion?” growled the Colonel.

“Quite so. Very questionable. I have never greatly admired either of the gentlemen in question.”

“And why on earth have you been playing such pranks with your face? Think it an improvement?”

“I was in Italy when the troubles broke out,—at Piora, near Airolo. Before I could get through, France was practically closed to any but Frenchmen. I wished to get home so I became a Frenchman for the time being—a Frenchman of the Second Empire, and me voici! But I came to bring you news.”

“Of Con?” asked Mrs Dare eagerly.

“Of Con? No. What is wrong with my good friend Con?”

“He’s reported missing,” said the Colonel.

“Missing!”—with a pinch of the lips that jerked up the long moustache. “I am sorry. But that is better than either killed or wounded. He is at all events safe from harm.”

“You really think so, Doctor?” asked Mrs Dare anxiously.

“Why, of course, my dear madame. As a prisoner of war he will be well-treated and out of harm’s way.”

“If one could only be sure of that,” she sighed.

“What’s your news then?” asked the Colonel brusquely, not having yet quite recovered from his umbrage at the Doctor’s facial metamorphosis.

“Ah, yes—my news.... I came over Furka by way of Hospenthal, and there, at the Golden Lion, I met two of my young friends whom you know verywell——”

“Lois and Ray?” and Mrs Dare dropped her knitting and stared up at him in anxious excitement.

“Yes—Lois andRay——”

“I told you they’d strike down south and get out that way,” said the Colonel triumphantly. “That’s good. I forgive you your barbarisms, Doctor,—neat that, eh? And I’ll take another cup of tea on the strength of it, Mrs Mother, if you please!”

“And they were quite all right?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Quite all right, and as happy as young people ought to be. They were hastening down toMontreux——”

“And why haven’t they got here?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Well, you see, it was no easy matter even for me, and I had made up my mind to get through at any sacrifice,” and he stroked, with a suggestion of regret, the remnant of the flowing beard that had had to go. “I made my way across country to St Nazaire and got across from there. But it was no easy matter, I assure you.—And, besides, they had plans of their own—great plans. They were hastening to Montreux to getmarried——”

“To get married?” echoed Mrs Dare, while the Colonel greeted the news with a shout of, “Well done, Ray! Da-ash it, that boy’s got brains in him. I knew he had good taste,” and he turned and grasped Mrs Dare’s hands and shook them heartily.

“But why could they not wait till they got home?” asked Mrs Dare.

“Well—I think they felt it not quite proper to be wandering about together like that, you know. And there is no knowing how long they may be detained out there.”

“Why didn’t you bring them along with you?” asked the Colonel.

“I had booked a seat in the diligence to Brigue, and it proved to be the very last seat—and I fear the last diligence. The driver told me they would probably stop next day, as all the horses were wanted by the military at Thun. It may be weeks before you see them, and I’m afraid there are many others in the same predicament.Ray particularly asked me to ask you to send him out some more money to Poste Restante, Montreux. But I’m afraid you’ll have difficulty in doing so.”

“I’ll see the bank first thing in the morning. They’ll manage it somehow. And what opinion did you form of things generally over there, Doctor?”

“I had small chance of hearing anything. I’ve heard a great deal more since I reached home.”

“You were in Italy, you say. Well, what’s Italy going to do? She’s an important factor in the case.”

“Undoubtedly!”—with a sagacious nodding of the ponderous head. “A very important factor.... What she will ultimately decide it is impossible to say. She is not anxious for war, that is pretty certain. She is poor, you see, and somewhat exhausted. If she had been going in of necessity, as a member of the Triplice, she would have declared herself before this. It depends, I should say, on whether the others can force her in.”

“Not a volunteer, eh! And maybe at best an unwilling conscript. I should say she’d be well advised to keep out of it.”

“If she can.... Ah, here are the young ladies!”—as Honor and Vic came in with looks that demanded tea.

“Goodness!—” gasped Vic.

“Gracious!—” continued Honor, and they both ended on a most emphatic “Me!” and stood staring at him with faces full of amazement.

“The voice is the voice of Jacob but the face is as the face of—who is it, Vic?”

“Mephistopheles.... What on earth are you playing at, Doctor?”

“Playing?” he remonstrated, pulling up the point of his Napoleon and trying to look down at it with melancholy regret. “Playing, indeed!”

“I fathom it,” said Vic gleefully. “It’s an omen. Germany’s going to be beaten so you’ve transformed yourself into the likeness—such as it is—of Napoléon Trois. Good business!”

“Napoléon Trois has always been my particular detestation, Miss Vic-who-ought-to-have-been-Balaclava,”—which was his usual counter-stroke to her thrust,—“as you very well know. This was imposed upon me by force of circumstance. I had to get home, you see,—for all your sakes. And to get home I had to come across France.”

“And you were afraid of being taken for a German spy! I see.”

But he had known her since her hair hung down her back and he would not take offence.

“I might very well have been taken for a German, anyway, and Germans are not held in high esteem in France at the moment.”

“Nor anywhere else in the world except in Germany. And I hope they’ll be blotted out even there before long. Detestable wretches!”

“Ta—ta! There speaks hot youth. But it does not trouble me since I have nothing in common with Germany.”

“Except your name, and your birth, and your looks,—when they’re normal that is, mein Herr! They’ll intern you, for certain, at Dorchester, or Porchester, or wherever it is, and youwillhave a time.”

“All that does not concern me, my dear. I am a British subject just as much as you are.”

“Not a bit of it, mein Herr! I was born one.”

“The more credit to me. You couldn’t help yourself. I acquired the right of my own good free-will.”

“He has you there, Vic,” said the Colonel, who always found huge enjoyment in their sparring. “But he has brought us news of Ray and Lois—Mr and Mrs Ray Luard, I shouldsay——”

“No!” and the two girls flopped down into chairs simultaneously.

“Fact,—at least we have every reason to hope so. When the Doctor saw them—at Hospenthal—they were making their way down to Montreux, with the expressed intention of getting married as soon as they got there.”

“Well!...I—am——”

“‘Hammered!’ as Gregor says,” supplied Honor. “What a pair of families we are! Vic, my dear, the atmosphere of war is packed with marriage-germs. We must be careful. I’m sure they’re catching. Mother, dear, some tea, please. Quick! I feel faint,” and, first carefully taking off her hat, she subsided gracefully against the back of her chair.

“All the same, Nor, it’s rather too bad, you know,” said Vic resentfully. “That’s two weddings we’ve been done out of. It’s really anything but fair.”

“It’s abominably shameful,” said Honor, undergoing a quick revival at thought of their wrongs. “I don’t believe they’ll have been properly married out there. It ought to be done over again as soon as they get home. How do you know it will be all right?” she put it to the Colonel. “Ten years hence it may come out that they are not really married at all and there’ll be a dreadful scandal.”

“I’ll trust Ray to see himself properly married, my dear,” laughed the Colonel. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about it,” and then with a touch of concern in his voice, to the Doctor,—“I hope they’ll not give you any trouble here, Rhenius. Some of the yellow rags are making something of an outcry against foreigners—enemy foreigners, I mean. You see, there undoubtedly is an immense amount of espionage going on, and folks are apt to run to extremes at times and lose all nice sense of discrimination.”

The Doctor shrugged his big shoulders. “I was naturalised years before some of you were born. They will not trouble me,” he said with confidence. “If they do I’ll come to you for a character, Colonel.”

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