Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/294

 Major Quin and I stood aloof, chatting together.

"Good journey?" I asked.

"Excellent, but I'm glad it's over. That little lady is too unmistakably German. Everybody spotted her and looked unutterable things. She was frightened, and I don't wonder. Most of them thought the worst of me. I had to threaten one fellow with a damned good hiding for an impertinent remark I overheard."

Brand thanked him for looking after his wife, and Elsa gave him her hand and said, "Danke schön."

Major Quin raised his finger and said, "Hush. Don't forget you're in Paris now."

Then he saluted with a click of spurs, and took his leave. I put Brand and his wife in a taxi and drove outside, by the driver, to a quiet old hotel in the Rue St. Honoré, where we had booked rooms.

When we registered, the manager at the desk stared at Elsa curiously. She spoke English, but with an unmistakable accent. The man's courtesy to Brand, which had been perfect, fell from him abruptly and he spoke with icy insolence when he summoned one of the boys to take up the baggage. In the dining-room that night all eyes turned to Elsa and Brand, with inquisitive, hostile looks. I suppose her frock, simple and ordinary as it seemed to me, proclaimed its German fashion. Or perhaps her face and hair were not so English as I had imagined. It was a little while before the girl herself was aware of those unpleasant glances about her. She was very happy sitting next to Brand, whose hand she caressed once or twice and into whose face she looked with adoration. She was still very pale, and I could see that she was immensely tired after her journey, but her eyes shone wonderfully. Sometimes she looked about her and encountered the stares of people—elderly French bourgeois and some English nurses and a few French