er at last. She
could not keep from loving him," said the blue.

Suzanne appeared that moment in the doorway and stood there unnoticed.
She looked at them grimly and then came the rare smile that gave her
face that wonderful softness.

"Come, Mademoiselle Julie and Mr. John," she said. "Dinner is ready and
I tell you now that I've never prepared a better one. This prince has a
taste in food and wine that I did not think to find in any German."

"And all that was his is ours now," said John. "Fortune of war."

Suzanne's promise was true to the last detail. The dinner was superb and
they had an Austrian white wine that never finds its way into the
channels of commerce.

"To you, Julie, and our happy return to Paris," said John, looking over
the edge of his glass. Suzanne was in the kitchen then and he dared to
drop the "Mademoiselle."

"To you, John," she said, as she touched the wine to her lips--she too
dared to drop the "Mr."

And then gray depths looked into blue depths and blue into gray,
speaking a language that each understood.

"We're the chosen of fortune," said John, "The hotel at Chastel
presented itself to us when we needed it most, and again when we need it
most this lodge gives us all hospitality."

"Fortune has been truly kind," said Julie.

After dinner they went back to the great room where the fire still
blazed and Suzanne, when she had cleared everything away, joined them.
She quietly took a chair next to the wall and went to work on some
sewing that she had found in the lodge. But John saw that she had
installed herself as a sort of guardian of them both, and she meant to
watch over them as her children. Yet however often she might appear to
him in her old grim guise he would always be able to see beneath it.

Now they talked but little. John saw after a while that Julie was
growing sleepy, and truly a slender girl who had been through so much in
one day had a right to rest. He caught Suzanne's eye and nodded. Rising,
the Frenchwoman said in the tone of command which perhaps she had often
used to Julie as a child:

"It's time we were off to bed, Mademoiselle. The storm will make us both
sleep all the better."

"Good night, Mr. John," said Julie.

"Good night. Miss Julie."

Once more the stern face of Suzanne softened under a smile, but she and
her charge marched briskly away, and left John alone before the fire. He
had decided that he would not sleep upstairs, but would occupy the
g