Doggie leant his elbows on the table.
“And you have come through all that, Mademoiselle Jeanne, just as you are——?”
“How, just as I am?”
“So gentle and kind and comprehending?”
Her cheek flushed. “I am not the only Frenchwoman who has passed through such things and kept herself proud. But the struggle has been very hard.”
Doggie rose and clenched his fists and rubbed his head from front to back in his old indecisive way, and began to swear incoherently in English. She smiled sadly.
“Ah, mon pauvre ami!”
He wheeled round: “Why do you call me ‘mon pauvre ami’?”
“Because I see that you would like to help me and you can’t.”
“Jeanne,” cried Doggie, bending half over the table which was between them.