'When I hear from him, I shall go, Marie,' Miss Stanley answered. 'But I leave everything here to you and Théophile. The British fleet holds the sea, they say, and I shall be better off in England. I shall surely come back when the war is over, and perhaps I shall bring my husband with me.'
Some dim muscular effort deepened the wrinkles in the old woman's face. It was as if a knife had cut them in the living flesh.
'I hope so—if Théophile and I are here. To be sure, you must go where it is your duty. We will keep such of the provisions as can be kept—'
'Keep nothing. It is all for you who have been so kind to me—you and yours. Not a child, not a creature, for a dozen miles about that I would not wish to share with, as you know. But—listen, Marie.' Miss Stanley blushed faintly as she bent her head nearer Marie's good ear.
'It is my duty. My first duty, that is, must be to my future husband. When he returns from America' (she had long ago learned the futility of distinguishing, for Marie, between 'l'Amérique du nord' and 'l'Amérique du sud'; and was patient with her belief that New York was a suburb of Cayenne) 'he will wish me there. He was to have sailed last month. A letter—a telegram—must have gone astray in the confusion. When I hear, he will doubtless be in England. And when he reached England, I was to go to my friends and be married to him. My heart bleeds for France; but I am not French, and my duty is not here. I am American, you see, dear Marie, and my fiancé is English.'
'Ah!' Marie shook her head. 'My old head is turned with all they tell me, and the buzzing in my bad ear is like cannon. But I had thought that the English, for some reason I do not understand, were fighting with us. They have been telling us for ten years that we do not hate the English—that we love them. And Théophile thought that an English army was against the Germans. But perhaps I am wrong. Monsieur votre fiancé will not have to fight, then? I congratulate you, mademoiselle.'
'The English are fighting with the French, Marie. But all Englishmen are not soldiers. Monsieur Laye is not a soldier. He is an engineer.'
'He is perhaps past the age.'
'There is no conscription in England, Marie. No man is a soldier unless he chooses.'
'No service to make?'