CHAPTER VII
THE THREE "CLIENTS"
"What!" cried Fanny on Monday morning, staring at the brigadier and at the pink paper he offered her.
"At once, at once, mademoiselle. You ought to have been told last night. You must go back for your things for the night and then as quickly as you can to the Hôtel de l'Europe. I don't know how many days you'll be, but here is an order for fifty litres of petrol and a can of oil, and Pichot is getting you two spare tubes…."
She stared at him in horror a moment longer, then took the pink order and disappeared through the dark garage door. Her mind was in a frenzy of protestation. She saw the waiting cars which might have gone instead, the drivers polishing a patch of brass for want of something to do, and accident, pure accident, had lighted on her, to sweep her out of Metz, away from that luminous personality which brooded over the city like a sunset, out into the nondescript world, the cold Anywhere. White frills and yards of bleached calico lying at the dressmaker's cried out to her to stay, to make some protest, to say something, anything—that she was ill—and stay.
She splashed petrol wastefully into the tank, holding the small blue tin with firm hands high in the air above the leather strainer and the funnel.
"And if I said—(it is mad)—if I said, 'I am in love. I can't go. Send some one who is not in love!'" She glanced down from her perch on the footboard at the olive profile bent over the next car. The driver was sitting on his step with his open hand outstretched to hold a dozen bright washers which he was stirring with his forefinger. The hand with the washers sank gently to rest on his knee, and he sighed as he ceased stirring, and looked absently down the garage, his mystical cloak of bone and skin shrouding his thoughts. Idle men all down the garage hung about the cars, each holding within him some private affection, some close hope, something which sent a spurt of dubious song out of his mouth, or his eyes, wandering sightless, down the shed.
The tank, resenting her treatment, overflowed violently and drenched her skirt and feet.
"Are you ready, mademoiselle?"
"Coming. Where are the tubes?"