"But they have only been here—how many days?"
"Four days, M'sieu'—but we love them. Ah, the difference when such as they drop from the skies! It beautifies our life. C'est une fuite, sans doute, M'sieu'?"
"A little; but all will be accommodated."
"You are a parent, M'sieu'?"
"I am a friend of the parents. I am un peu—ambassador."
"And they will return and be pardoned?"
"It is what I seek to arrange."
She had placed a chair for me. She herself sat with her back to the table on the bench that had been occupied by the red-breeched dragoons the night before I glanced round the room. Behind the open door the inner tube of a bicycle hung on a nail in the wall, and a bicycle-pump and an oilcan stood on a little shelf above it. Beneath the shelf was an empty space, more than sufficient for a bicycle. I saw now how I had missed her. She had wheeled her bicycle straight in and had put it behind the door, had crossed the kitchen to a closed door on my right, and had gone to her room—gone to where he waited for her, for he had certainly not been among the soldiers when I had peeped in.
"You say that M'sieu' talks to the clients of an evening, Madame. Did he do so last night?"
"Last night, no, M'sieu'. One missed him. But talk to them, he! For three nights he has talked and laughed all the evening while she has assisted me. Talk and laugh? C'est à dire! To hear him sing to the copains—'En France y a qu' des Français'—la figure, les gestes—c'est à tordre!"