if he knew about these excursions into the forest after mushrooms.”
“Maybe.”
“Aren’t you going to put a stop to them?”
“Not I!” Claude jerked, setting the corners of his mouth grimly. “If the girls, or their people, make complaint to me, I’ll interfere. Not otherwise. I’ve thought the matter over.”
“Oh, the girls—” David laughed softly. “Well, it’s something to acquire a taste for mushrooms. They don’t get them at home, do they?”
When, after eight days, the Americans had orders to march, there was mourning in every house. On their last night in town, the officers received pressing invitations to the dance in the square. Claude went for a few moments, and looked on. David was dancing every dance, but Hicks was nowhere to be seen. The poor fellow had been out of everything. Claude went over to the church to see whether he might be moping in the graveyard.
There, as he walked about, Claude stopped to look at a grave that stood off by itself, under a privet hedge, with withered leaves and a little French flag on it. The old woman with whom they stayed had told them the story of this grave.
The Curé’s niece was buried there. She was the prettiest girl in Beaufort, it seemed, and she had a love affair with a German officer and disgraced the town. He was a young Bavarian, quartered with this same old woman who told them the story, and she said he was a nice boy, handsome and gentle, and used to sit up half the night in the garden with his head in his hands—homesick, lovesick. He was always after this Marie Louise; never pressed her, but was always there, grew up
