When she came in again:
“Yes,” she said, almost whispering. “What will you have?”
“What have you got?” he said, looking up into her face.
“There’s cold meat—”
“That’s for me, then.”
The stranger sat at the end of the table and ate with the tired, quiet soldiers. Now, the landlady was interested in him. Her brow was knit rather tense, there was a look of panic in her large, healthy face, but her small brown eyes were fixed most dangerously. She was a big woman, but her eyes were small and tense. She drew near the stranger. She wore a rather loud-patterned flannelette blouse, and a dark skirt.
“What will you have to drink with your supper?” she asked, and there was a new, dangerous note in her voice.
He moved uneasily.
“Oh, I’ll go on with ale.”
She drew him another glass. Then she sat down on the bench at the table with him and the soldiers, and fixed him with her attention.