And how the great war correspondent did eat and drink! It made Jack hungry again to watch him, so with a laughing apology to Lorraine he joined in with a will, enthusiastically applauded and encouraged by Grahame.
"I could tell you were a correspondent by your appetite," said Grahame. "Dear me! it takes a campaign to make life worth living!"
"Life is not worth living, then, without an appetite?" inquired Lorraine, mischievously.
"No," said Grahame, seriously; "and you also will be of that opinion some day, mademoiselle."
His kindly, humourous eyes turned inquiringly from Jack to Lorraine and from Lorraine to Jack. He was puzzled, perhaps, but did not betray it.
They were not married, because Lorraine was Mademoiselle de Nesville and Jack was Monsieur Marche. Cousins? Probably. Engaged? Probably. So Grahame smiled benignly and emptied another bottle of Moselle with a frank abandon that fascinated the old house-keeper.
"And you don't mean to say that you are going to put me up for the night, too?" he asked Jack. "You place me under eternal obligation, and I accept with that understanding. If you run into my Hohenzollerns, they'll receive you as a brother."
"I don't think he will visit the Hohenzollern Regiment," observed Lorraine, demurely.
"No--er--the fact is, I'm not doing much newspaper work now," said Jack.
Grahame was puzzled but bland.
"Tell us, Monsieur Grahame, of what you saw in the Spicheren," said Lorraine. "Is it a very bad defeat? I am sure it cannot be. Of course, France will win, sooner or later; nobody doubts that."
Before Grahame could manufacture a suitable reply--and his wit was as quick as his courtesy--a door opened and Madame de Morteyn entered, sad-eyed but smiling.
Jack jumped up and asked leave to present Mr. Grahame, and the old lady received him very sweetly, insisting that he should make the Château his home as long as he stayed in the vicinity.
A few moments later she went away with Lorraine and her maid, and Jack and Archibald Grahame were left together to sip their Moselle and smoke some very excellent cigars that Jack found in the library.
"Mr. Grahame," said Jack, diffidently, "if it would not be an impertinent question, who is going to run away in this campaign?"
Grahame's face fell; his sombre glance swept the beautiful room and rested on a picture--the "Battle of Waterloo."
"It will be worse than that," he said, abruptly. "May I take one of these cigars? Oh, thank you."
Jack's heart sank, but he smiled and passed a lighted cigar-lamp to the other.
"My judgment has been otherwise," he said, "and what you say troubles me."