"You think she will come back?"
"Sometimes I think it. She has such a sense of property. But her daughter writes that it would kill her to come. Phillippe was the sun … was the good God to her."
"I must go back to my work," said the lieutenant. "Can you be happy here in this empty house? There will be rats…."
"I can be very happy—and so grateful. I will move my things across to-day. My companions … that is to say six more of us arrive in convoy from Chantilly to-morrow."
"Six more! Had you told me that before … But what more simple! I can put them all in here. There is room for twenty."
"Oh…." Her face fell, and she stood aghast. "And you gave me this house for myself. And I was so happy!"
"You are terrible. If my business was to lodge soldiers of your sex every day I should be grey-haired. You cannot lodge with an owl, you cannot lodge with your compatriots!…"
"Yet you were joking when you said you would put us all here?"
"I was joking. Take the house—the rats and the rubbish included with it! No one will disturb you till the owner comes. I have another, a better, a cleaner house in my mind for your companions. Now, good-bye, I must go back to my work. Will you ask me to tea one day?"
"I promise. The moment I have one sitting-room ready."