"Well, I shall know where I met her. Do you mind if I go?"

He followed the girl into the back room. f.a.n.n.y, searching in her pocket for her handkerchief, scattered a couple of German iron pennies on the floor; an American from the table behind picked them up and returned them to her. "These things are just a weight and a trouble," he said.

"I think I shall throw mine away?"

"You've come down from Germany, then?"

"Been up at Treves. They do you well up there."

"Not better than here!"

"No, this is an exception. It's a good place."

"Madame is a great manager."

"Hev' you got more German pennies than you know what to do with?" said the American sergeant who had advised her to drink the wine. "Because, if you hev' so hev' I and I'll play you at dominoes for them."

As Julien did not return at once, f.a.n.n.y moved to his table and piled her German pennies beside her, and they picked out their dominoes from the pile.

"I want to go home," said the American, and lifted up his big face and looked at her.

"You all do."

"That's right. We all do," a.s.sented another and another. They would make this statement to her at every village where she met them, in every _estaminet_, at any puncture on the road over which they helped her --simply, and because it was the only thing in their minds.

"Do you hev' to come out here?" he enquired.

"Oh, no. We come because we like to."

Thinking this a trumpery remark he made no answer, but put out another domino--then as though something about her still intrigued his heavy curiosity: "You with the French, ain't you?"

"Yes."

"Like that too?"

He sat a little back into his chair as though he felt he had put her in a corner now, and when she said she even liked that too, twitched his cheek a little in contempt for such a lie and went on playing.

But the remark worked something in him, for five minutes later he pursued:

"I don't see anything in the French. They ain't clean. They ain't generous. They ain't up-to-date nor comfortable."

f.a.n.n.y played out her domino.

"They don't know how to _live_," he said more violently than he had spoken yet.

"What's living?" she said quickly. "What is it to live, if _you_ know?"

"You want to put yourself at something, an' build up. Build up your fortune and spread it out and about, and have your house so's people know you've got it. I want to get home and be doing it."

"Mademoiselle actually knows it!" said Julien in the doorway to the red-haired woman in the back room, and f.a.n.n.y jumped up.

The American pa.s.sed four iron coins across the table. "'Tisn't going to hinder that fortune I'm going to make," he said, smiling at last.

"What do I know?" she asked, approaching the doorway, and moving with him into the back room.

"Madame owns a house in Verdun," said Julien, "and I tell her you know it."

"_I_ know it?"

"Come and drink this little gla.s.s of my wine, mademoiselle," said the red-haired woman good-humouredly, "and tell me about my poor little house. I had a house on the crown of the hill ... with a good view ... and a good situation (she laughed) by the Cathedral."

"Had you? Well, there are a great many by the Cathedral," f.a.n.n.y answered cautiously, for she thought she knew the house that was meant.

"But my house looked out on the _citadelle_, and stood very high on a rock. Below it there was a drop and steep steps went down to a street below."

"Had you pink curtains in the upper windows?"

"Is it not then so damaged?" demanded the woman eagerly, dropping her smile. "The curtains are left? You can see the curtains?"

"No, no, it is terribly damaged. If it is the house you mean I found a piece of pink satin and a curtain ring under a brick, and there is a sad piece which still waves on a high window. But wait a minute, excuse me, I'll be back." She pa.s.sed through the cafe and ran out to the car, returning in a moment with something in her hand.

"I fear I looted your house, madame," she said, offering her a small cylindrical pot made of coa.r.s.e clouded gla.s.s, and half filled with a yellowish paste. "I found that inside on the ground floor; I don't know why I took it."

The woman held it in her hand. "Oh!" she wailed, and sliding down upon the sofa, found her handkerchief.

"_Mais non!_" said Julien, "you who have so much courage!"

"But it was my own _face_!" she cried incoherently, holding out the little pot. "My poor little cream pot!"

"What!"

"It was my face cream!"

"How strange!"

"I had not used it for a week because they had recommended me a new one.

Ah! miraculous! that so small a thing should follow me!"

She touched her eyes carefully with her handkerchief, but a live tear had fallen on the waistcoat.

"Tell me, mademoiselle ... sit down beside me, my dear ... the poor little house is no more good to me? I couldn't live there? Is there a roof?"

"You couldn't live in it."

"But the roof?"

"It was on the point of sliding off; it was worn like a hat over one ear. The front of the house is gone. Only on the frame of one window which sticks to the wall could I see your piece of pink curtain which waves."

"My poor, pretty house!" she mused. "My first, you know," she said in an undertone to Julien. "Ah, well, courage, as you say!"