Cordonnier was knocking at the door.
“Madame Latour?”
Brent got a grip on himself. He felt that he could not leave this business to Manon, and that he did not want the taint of it in her heart on this most happy and innocent day. He went to the door, and found Cordonnier and the officer waiting on the path.
Cordonnier looked under his slow eyelids at Brent.
“Monsieur Paul, here is an English officer who has come to take away a body.”
Brent glanced at the officer. He was the most harmless thing imaginable, a Moth in Spectacles, one of those anomalous males without masculinity, in age about five-and-forty, mild, a little frightened, with a brown moustache that fell down over a precise mouth. Brent seemed to know that there was a patch of baldness under his cap. He was indifferently shaved. His tie was in a lump. He wore very new leggings that did not fit.
“Bonjour, monsieur.”
The officer began in text-book French.
“Bonjour, monsieur, est-ce que vous avez un soldat Anglais enterré ici?”
“There is a grave in the orchard, monsieur.”