She nodded. “Of course. This is what I came to France to do.”

“To—to be set down on a pile of filth like this”—his arm swept the room—“alone—in the middle of an army—within a couple of miles of No Man’s Land?”

“Of course.... Why not?”

“Aren’t you—afraid?”

She was actually surprised; there was no pretense about it. “Of what?” she asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll bet you never slept alone in a house before in your life.”

“Never.”

“You wouldn’t do it at home.”

“I suppose not.”

He waggled his head. “You’d have been afraid to stay alone in a house in a civilized town.... Now, wouldn’t you?”