The three had little appetite for dinner, which Jacqueline prepared earlier than usual. They had finished when one of the green units detached itself from the procession of armed power.
"We billet here to-night," he said in French to Phil, who met him at the door. "How many of you are there? Three? Keep to your bedrooms and leave the rest of the house to us. And you, are you English?"
"No, American."
"And what are you doing here?"
"I am here with my cousins," he answered. "We managed to get their mother away to Paris."
"Keep to your rooms!" was the warning.
A few minutes later a dozen dusty officers with baggage and orderlies arrived. Their guttural voices seemed to fill the rooms. When they wanted to occupy the kitchen Jacqueline was inclined to show fight, but Phil dissuaded her and after her first temperamental outburst she yielded to Cæsar and put her saucepans at the service of Cæsar's minions, who were already rummaging among the preserves and the wines. It was war, a matter of course. Jacqueline being bred of a military race accommodated herself to the fact, with a deadly hate in her heart.
By the wish of the two girls, who plainly preferred not to be alone, they all made Henriette's bedroom a sitting-room. There they sat, listening to the heavy footsteps below, the loud talk with references to Paris, the clinking of glasses and toasts of exultant militarism. Phil's anger was hard to control. He was not of a military race. These men were highwaymen and burglars to him, outraging a home.
A brigadier-general slept in Madame Ribot's room; captains had the sofas and lieutenants the floor. Not until there was silence below did the three separate. Before dawn they were aroused by the harsh gutturals and the noise of packing and hurried breakfasts, before the officers again took their places with their commands and the green river moved on after the few hours' rest which even German discipline had to concede to the limitations of the human machine. Half-empty preserve jars and wine bottles were on the tables and sausage grease had been ground into the floors. In the littered kitchen industrious Jacqueline had already begun putting things to rights and in due course prepared the morning coffee as usual.
"I feel as if the house had been tainted!" she said.