"I am so very sorry," he said, "I cannot give you the gramophone to-night. I have no more needles."
"That is a pity," said the padre.
The window-panes shook; a big gun went off close to the house. Aurelle went to the window and saw behind a farm, silhouetted in black against the orange twilight of the sky, a yellowish smoke, slowly dispersing.
"There's the old man beginning to strafe again," said the padre. "I don't like this house."
"You will have to put up with it, padre; the Staff captain won't give us another; he's a boy who knows his own mind."
"Yes," said the colonel, "he is a very nice boy too; he is one of Lord Bamford's sons."
"His father, the old Lord, was a fine rider," said Parker.
"His sister," replied the colonel, "married a cousin of Graham, who was a major in our first battalion at the beginning of the War, and is now a brigadier-general."
Aurelle, foreseeing that such an interesting subject, so rich in the possibility of unexpected developments, would occupy the entire evening, tried to scribble some verses, still meditating on luck and chance.
"Tu l'as dit, ô Pascal, le nez de Cléopâtre,
S'il eût été plus court ... nous n'en serions pas là."