I said I was glad he had noticed it--I did make such an effort. "No, no," he said, "I'm not joking. I may not say it very well, but I am quite serious. We all want to say to you that if it is war that makes you and the women you live amongst so different from English women, then all we can say is that the sooner England is invaded and knows what it means to have a fighting army on her soil, and see her fields devastated and her homes destroyed, the better it will be for the race. You take my word for it, they have no notion of what war is like; and there ain't no English woman of your class could have, or would have, done for us what you have done this morning. Why, in England the common soldier is the dirt under the feet of women like you." I had to laugh, as I told him to wait and see how they treated them when war was there; that they probably had not done the thing simply because they never had had the chance. "Well," he answered, "they'll have to change mightily. Why, our own women would have been uncomfortable and ashamed to see a lot of dirty men stripping and washing down like we have done. You haven't looked as if you minded it a bit, or thought of anything but getting us cleaned up as quick and comfortable as possible." I started to say that I felt terribly flattered that I had played the role so well, but I knew he would not understand. Besides, I was wondering if it were true. I never knew the English except as individuals, never as a race. So I only laughed, picked up my towels, and went home to rest. Not long before noon a bicycle scout came over with a message from Captain Edwards, and I sent by him a basket of eggs, a cold chicken, and a bottle of wine as a contribution to the breakfast at the officers' mess; and by the time I had eaten my breakfast, the picket had been changed, and I saw no more of those boys. During the afternoon the booming off at the east became more distinct. It surely was cannon. I went out to the gate where the corporal of the guard was standing, and asked him, "Do I hear cannon?" "Sure," he replied. "Do you know where it is?" I asked. He said he hadn't an idea--about twenty-five or thirty miles away. And on he marched, up and down the road, perfectly indifferent to it. When Amelie came to help get tea at the gate, she said that a man from Voisins, who had started with the crowd that left here Wednesday, had returned. He had brought back the news that the sight on the road was simply horrible. The refugies had got so blocked in their hurry that they could move in neither direction; cattle and horses were so tired that they fell by the way; it would take a general to disentangle them. My! wasn't I glad that I had not been tempted to get into that mess! Just after the boys had finished their tea, Captain Edwards came down the road, swinging my empty basket on his arm, to say "Thanks" for his breakfast. He looked at the table at the gate.