"For a futile political theorist, you do have perfectly unexpected moments of insight," I told him.
"Yes, Miss," said Peter.
Silence, except for the rooks, the sound of the brook, and a little wayward flutter of the leaves where the wind was moving. I went to the kitchen and added something un-British and digestible to the supper menu, then walked up and down, wondering why a man probably famished did not appear. Finally I decided that I must investigate and tiptoed my way to the corner of the house. Marie was still sitting in her chair; her knitting was on the ground beside her. The shadow of the grapevine was gone, and her face was alive with light from within and without. The level shafts of sunlight that touched it fell too on the red brick wall behind her, where the espaliered pear tree was etched in dark lines, and all the garden was a soft glow of October gold. The stranger was sitting on the ground with his head against Marie's knees, and her little shawl over his shoulders, sleeping like a child that had found its way home.
As I crept near, Marie looked up, and a heavenly smile came over her face. She took my hand and held it, kissing it more than once, and she said over and over: "Mademoiselle; Mademoiselle," and again, "Mademoiselle."
We let her lover stay as long as we dared on the brick walk, covering him warmly with steamer rugs. Later we found that he had just reached England and had hardly slept for a week. The sunset faded, and the stars grew bright, and still he leaned his head against Marie's knee and slept the sleep of exhaustion.
Presently we wakened him; there was a great sound of splashing water; Marie ran up-stairs to do her hair over again and came down flushed like a rose, revitalized, alive as I had not dreamed she could be alive, and at last our guest appeared, clean and smiling. He was evidently amused by the odd fit of Peter's clothes, but too tired and too happy to say much. I sped to the kitchen to make the French omelette; Madge cannot do it,—no Briton could; it has to be manipulated in just the right fashion, turned at the exact fraction of a second, and served in just the right way. You should have seen Don, when he found the stranger in your place, apologizing, snuffing daintily, touching him with a friendly and beseeching paw, pretending that he had always known!
Of course the lovers were holding hands under the table; of course you, as an Englishman, would have thought them effusive, but I should have been terribly hurt if they had not been effusive about that omelette. When I rise to the occasion like this, I like to be appreciated; I had nothing to complain of that night. Tea and toast and jam; a few tears, and much laughter, and a Sultana cake—the very kind that grew in Oxford windows and graced our five o'clock banquets; a Sultana cake calls to my mind the profoundest problems of life and destiny, so many of them we discussed over the crumbs,—this, I am afraid, meant a rather ascetic repast for the young Belgians, but I thought that anything more, with their great draughts of happiness, would be indigestible. Peter took Henri to the Inn and got a room for him. Though he was there more than three weeks, mine host would not let me pay a farthing,—no, indeed! The Belgians are the guests of the English nation, he said, and he was glad to have his chance to shelter one of them.
November 1. War, unceasing war in the trenches, with rumours of a British naval defeat in South American waters, and little encouraging news save that the Germans have failed to reach Dunkirk and Calais. England's best are dying, your kind,—England's noblest sons rushing to the danger places, foolishly, grandly brave. One can feel throughout the country the great purpose shaping itself to the needs of the moment, as it does slowly but surely in this land. That is the secret of this people: they can rise to a challenge, meet any crisis whatever when it comes; and though I know that unpreparedness has cost them much, they are greater and better than if they had devoted their best energy for five and twenty years to getting ready for war. Enthusiasm kindles under the challenge of disaster; the finest have already answered the call; the less fine make the great refusal. You go, but Peter stays, and Peter's kind all over England stays….
November 5. Peter does not stay! Peter is going to the war! For several days he has been very critical of civilization, very severe upon his country and her rulers; at times he seemed to think himself the only real pillar of Church and State. Some struggle was going on within him; I have learned enough of him to know that if he expresses a feeling, it is one he does not have! For him, as for me, the horror of the present moment has been intensified by coming into contact with those who have actually suffered. All that I could understand of Henri Dupré's account I have translated into English for Peter's benefit, and the sight of the bullet-riddled hat has plunged him in deep thought.
He saw your picture, the picture of you in khaki. Madge, unpermitted, had taken it into the kitchen to polish the frame of oak. Peter looked at it uneasily.