Vivie led her mother into the gay little
hall--how pleasant and cool it had looked in the early morning! It
was now full of surly-looking soldiers. Without hesitating she took
a chair from one soldier and placed her mother in it. "You rest
there a moment, dearest, while I go in and see the officer in
command." The corporal she had first spoken with beckoned her into
the pretty sitting-room at the back where they had had their early
breakfast that morning.
Here she saw seated at a table consulting plans of Brussels and
other papers a tall, handsome man of early middle age, who might
indeed have passed for a young man, had he not looked very tired and
care-worn and exhibited a bald patch at the back of his head,
rendered the more apparent because the brown-gold curls round it
were dank with perspiration. He rose to his feet, clicked his heels
together and saluted. "An English young lady, I am told, rather ...
a ... surprise ... on ... the ... outskirts ... of Brussels..." (His
English was excellent, if rather staccato and spaced.) "It ... is
... not ... usual ... for ... Englishwomen ... to ... be owners ...
of chateaux ... in Belgium. But I ... hear ... it ... is ... your
mother ... who is the owner ... from long time, and you are her
daughter newly arrived from England? Nicht wahr? Sie verstehen nicht
Deutsch, gnaediges Fraulein?"
"No," said Vivie, "I don't speak much German, and fortunately you
speak such perfect English that it is not necessary.
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