“Good day, Madame la Baronne, and thank you.”
Backing with a curtsy to the door, she let herself out, took her money from Placide, received her basket with her cloths and terrine, jerked up the head of the old white horse, and drove back to the farm. She had got what she wanted—the assurance of no ill news of Georges.
* * * *
That evening in the lamp-lit salon, after Madame had said, “There is nothing more; good night, Placide,” there was silence only broken by the Baron puffing his cigar. He supported the war very badly. He was too old to serve and was prevented from fishing or shooting by English water-supply officers, who dammed up and filtered his waters, and by French Gendarmerie Commandants, who stopped his supplies of cartridges. At last he exploded:
“Nothing ever happens in this cursed war. You, what have you done to-day?”
Madame la Baronne replied, after a moment’s silence that was partly protest at his manners and partly some tiny instinctive defensiveness, “I have seen Madeleine Vanderlynden!”
“Ah, she brought the ham and the hare pâté!”
“Yes.” Madame was struggling with that tiny instinct—could not quite catch what it prompted—her feeling only materialized into the words:
“She has bold eyes!”
“It is a fine girl. Probably she knows it!” qualified the Baron, and mused.