he old bird wanted to take me into the hotel and
stand me tea."

"Didn't you let him?"

"No. I said I had to stay with my car. And I took jolly good care to let
him know it hadn't been out yet."

"Whatever made you think of it?"

"I don't know. It just sort of came to me."

Next afternoon John had orders to go to Berlaere to fetch wounded.

VIII

At the turn of the road they heard the guns: a solemn Boom--Boom coming
up out of hushed spaces; they saw white puffs of smoke rising in the blue
sky. The French guns somewhere back of them. The German guns in front
southwards beyond the river.

Charlotte looked at John; he was brilliantly happy. They smiled at each
other as if they said "_Now_ it's beginning."

Outside the village of Berlaere they were held up by two sentries with
rifles. (Thrilling, that.) Their Belgian guide leaned out and whispered
the password; John showed their passports and they slipped through.

Where the road turned on their left into the street they saw a group of
soldiers standing at the door of a house. Three of them, a Belgian
lieutenant and two non-commissioned officers, advanced hurriedly and
stopped the car. The lieutenant forbade them to go on.

"But," John said, "we've got orders to go on."

A shrug intimated that their orders were not the lieutenant's affair.
They couldn't go on.

"But we _must_ go on. We've got to fetch some wounded."

"There aren't any wounded," said the lieutenant.

Charlotte had an inspiration. "You tell us that tale every time," she
said, "and there are always wounded."

The Belgian guide and the lieutenant exchanged glances.

"I've told you there aren't any," the lieutenant said. "You must go
back."

"Here--You explain."

But instead of explaining the little Belgian backed up the lieutenant by
a refusal on his own part to go on.

"He can please himself. _We're_ going on."

"You don't imagine," Charlotte said, "by any chance that we're _afraid_?"

The lieutenant smiled, a smile that lifted his ferocious, upturned
moustache: first sign that he was yielding. He looked at the sergeant and
the corporal, and they nodded.

John had his foot on the clutch. "We're due," he said, "at the dressing
station by three o'clock."

She thought: He's magnificent. She could see that the lieutenant and the
soldiers thought he was magnificent. Supposing she had gone out with some
meek fool who would have gone back when they told him!

The lieutenant s