Hardly had he turned his back when my companion hastily drew a knife from his pocket, sliced off the end of one of those golden loaves, and hid it under his coat.
"We have found some bread," he said calmly to the innkeeper, "so you can bring luncheon."
So, seated beside an Arab officer of la Grande Tente, dressed in a red burnous, we luncheon gaily with our guests, the soldier-chauffeurs of our motor car.
When we left the inn to continue our journey the festival of the sun was at its height; it cast a glad light upon that ill-assorted throng and the strange motor-omnibuses. A convoy of German prisoners was crossing the square; bestial and sly of countenance they marched between our own soldiers, who kept time infinitely better than they; scarcely a glance was thrown at them.
The old nun I spoke of, so old and so pure-eyed, was helping her Zouave to smoke a cigarette, holding it to his lips rather awkwardly with trembling, grandmotherly solicitude. At the same time she seemed to be telling him some quite amusing stories—with the innocent, ingenuous merriment of which good nuns have the secret—for they were both laughing. Who can say what little childish tale it may have been? An old parish priest, who was smoking his pipe near them—without any particular refinement, I am bound to admit—laughed, too, to see them laugh. And just as we were going into our car to continue our journey to those regions of horror where the cannon were thundering, a little girl of twelve ran and plucked a sheaf of autumn asters from her garden to deck us with flowers.
What good people there are still in the world! And how greatly has the aggression of German savages reinforced those tender bonds of brotherhood that unite all who are truly of the human species.