She teased her preposterously fat husband, and he looked annoyed, and said, “Tais-toi, Yvonne!” She made a little face at him, behind his back, and when Bertram went to his bedroom after dinner, she lighted his way with a candle, there being no gas in the house.
“Merci, et bonne nuit, madame!” said Bertram, politely, taking the candle from her, and putting it down on a wooden chair by the bedside.
She looked at him with a queer, wistful smile, and spoke in broken English.
“I am not married in time of war. You understand? English officers like me very much. Take my hand, try to give me kiss—what you say?—flirt! My big, fat husband not like me talk of those days. But I like remember! You will give me English kiss for old remembrance, eh?”
She held her face up, after glancing at the half closed door.
Bertram gave her a kiss. Why not? It was good to find some one who remembered the British Army with pleasure and affection. She kissed him six times in return, and then, with her finger to her lip, ran out of the room, as a big voice shouted:
“Yvonne! Qu’est-ce-que tu fais, toi?”
That night Bertram dreamed that it was Joyce who kissed him.
XLI
The thought of Paris pulled Bertram so strongly that he could wander no longer in the old war zone, and getting back to Amiens from Bapaume, took the train to the Gare du Nord. He had written some articles for The New World, photographic and phonographic, things seen and heard, without comment or moral, and some of them had been published, as he knew, not from seeing them—The New World was not sold in Paschendaele or Hooge!—but from a note written by Bernard Hall.