The countess flushed and then paled, but nobody but Ruth noticed this. The American girl watched her hostess covertly. The bare mention of a superstition that had the whole countryside by the throat, disturbed much the countess' self-control.
The next moment there was a step in the hall and then the door opened to admit the same young officer Ruth Fielding had met in the lane--Major Henri Marchand.
"Pardon, Maman," he said, bowing, and speaking to his mother quite like a little boy. "Do I offend?"
"Do come in and have a cup of tea, Henri. There is sugar and real cream--thanks to our two young friends here. You remember our petite Hetty, of course? And this is our very brave Mademoiselle Ruth Fielding, of the American Red Cross. My younger son, Monsieur Henri," the countess said easily.
Major Marchand advanced into the room promptly. To Henriette he bowed with a smile. Ruth put out her hand impulsively, and he bowed low above it and touched his lips to her fingers.
The girl started a little and glowed. The manner of his address rather shocked her, for she was unused to the European form of greeting. Henri's deep, purple eyes looked long into her own brown ones as he lingeringly released her hand.
"Mademoiselle!" he murmured. "I am charmed."
Ruth did not know whether she was altogether charmed or not! She felt that there was something rather overpowering in such a greeting, and she rather doubted the sincerity of it.
She could understand, however, little Henriette's sentimental worship of the young major. Henri Marchand was the type of man to hold the interest of most girls. His eyes were wonderful; his cheek as clear and almost as soft as a woman's; he wore his uniform with an air scarcely to be expressed in ordinary words.
Henriette immediately became tongue-tied. Ruth's experience had, however, given her ease in any company. The wonderful Major Marchand made little impression upon her. It was plain that he wished to interest the Americaine Mademoiselle.
The little tea party was interrupted by the appearance of Dolge at the library door.
"A young American in an ambulance inquires for Mademoiselle Fielding at the gate," said Dolge, cap in hand. "She is needed in haste, below there at the hospital."