She saw her question answered by the quick illumination of his eyes, and she went on quickly: “And I, I love you too, and I will give you all my poor life for what it is worth. Oh!” she cried, “I can’t imagine what you can see in me. Beside you I feel so small, of so little account. I can do nothing—nothing but love you.”
“That’s everything in the world,” said Bigourdin.
They were silent for a moment. Then he said: “I should like to meet the Boche who fired that rifle.”
“So should I,” she cried fiercely. “I should like to tear him limb from limb.”
“I shouldn’t,” said Bigourdin. “I should like to decorate him with a pair of wings and a little bow and arrow. . . .”
The nurse came up. “You must go now, mademoiselle. The patient is becoming too excited. It is not your fault. Nothing but a bolster across their mouths will prevent these Périgordins from talking.”
A tiny bedroom in a house over a grocer’s shop was all the accommodation that she had been able to secure, as the town was full of troops billeted on the inhabitants. As it was, that bedroom had been given up to her by a young officer who took pity on her distress. She felt her presence impertinent in this stern atmosphere of war. After seeing Bigourdin, she wandered for a while about the rainy streets and then retired to her chilly and comfortless room, where she ate her meal of sardines and sausage. The next day she presented herself at the hospital and saw the aide-major.
“Can you give me some work to do?” she asked. “I don’t pretend to be able to nurse. But I could fetch and carry and do odd jobs.”
But it was a French hospital, and the règlement made no provision for affording prepossessing young Englishwomen romantic employment.
Of course, said the aide-major, if Mademoiselle was bent upon it, she could write an application which would be forwarded to the proper quarter. But it would have to pass through the bureaux—and she, who knew France so well, was aware what the passing through the bureaux meant. Unless she had the ear of high personages, it would take weeks and perhaps months.