In a way I was relieved. Better be war between us than a long drawn out friendship that would be a constant strain on my ability to keep on good terms with him to prevent his telling. The more I thought of him, the better I liked Esky. And Ben was a veritable saint and jewel in comparison with him. —6— Jay-Jay didn’t show up next day, so I concluded that he was only in town for that night. Or Ben may have given him a black eye which required nursing. Anyway, I was free again for the time being, and we were going to Paris next day, with stops at Blois and Orléans, and even if Jay-Jay was back in Paris, I might be lucky enough to miss him. I was glad in spite of the danger: for the first thing I wanted was to hunt up Captain Winstead. CHAPTER 12 MADEMOISELLE FROM GAY PAREE —1— For several days I couldn’t seem to keep from thinking about poor old Lisa and her jealous husband and wondering whether or not they had made peace yet. It was a shame for them to have hard feelings, just because I happened to stop in to see my old nurse. I hoped Lisa told him the truth—if she hadn’t before I got to Le Mans again, he’d hear it from me. I was hoping that the General might change his plans and go to Le Mans this trip—much as I wanted to see the Captain—because I had to see Leon soon and find out what kind of a game he thought he was playing. If he had left Le Mans, there would be no other way of proving to Pierre that I was not a regular soldier except by, well, some kind of a vulgar display: if Leon was still there when I got there, then it shouldn’t be very difficult to make the old buzzard believe our story. Now, however, we were en route to Paris and I didn’t know what was going to happen. The General was very irritable and jumpy and complained of headaches and nervousness. I thought he was about ready to cave in—and if so, what would become of us? —2— A few days in Paris and I knew very well that General Backett was weakening under the strain. The doctors told him he ought to take a rest trip down to the South or over to England, but he positively refused. He finally had to give up work for a while and went to the hospital way over on the other side of the city from where Ben and I had to stay. I didn’t know what we would do with ourselves. He’d probably be there a couple of weeks anyway and there was nothing I could do, outside of a few routine things that didn’t amount to anything. Ben and I had to report to the Intelligence every day, just to satisfy some crazy regulation, but outside of that we had the time to ourselves. And it was just my luck that Captain Winstead was out of the city and wouldn’t return for two or three days yet.