Madame Chéri saw nothing wrong in swearing falsely to a German. I think she held that nothing was wrong to deceive or to destroy any individual of the German race, and I could understand her point of view when Pierre Nesle told me of one thing that had happened which she never told to me. It was about Hélène. A German captain was billeted in the house. They ignored his presence, though he tried to ingratiate himself. Hélène hated him with a cold and deadly hatred. She trembled if he passed her on the stairs. His presence in the house, even if she did not see him but only heard him move in his room, made her feel ill. Yet he was very polite to her, and said, “_Guten gnadiges Fràulein_,” whenever they met. To Edouard, also, he was courteous and smiling, though Edouard was sullen. He was a stout little man, with a round rosy face and little bright eyes behind big black-rimmed glasses, an officer in the Kommandantur, and formerly a schoolmaster. Madame Chéri, was polite to him, but cold, cold as ice. After some months, she found him harmless, though objectionable, because German. It did not seem dangerous to leave him in the house one evening when she went to visit a dying friend--Madame Vailly. She was later than she meant to be--so late that she was liable to arrest by the military police if they saw her flit past in the darkness of the unlit streets. When she came home she slipped the latch-key into the door and went quietly into the hall. The children would be in bed and asleep. At the foot of the stairs a noise startled her. It was a curious creaking, shaking noise, as of a door being pushed by some heavy weight, then banged by it. It was the door at the top of the stairs, on the left--Helène’s room. “_Qu’est-ce que tu fais là?_” said Madame Chéri. She was very frightened with some unknown fear, and held tight to the banister as she went upstairs. There was a glimmer of light on the landing. It was from a candle which had almost burnt out and was guttering in a candlestick placed on the topmost stair. A grotesque figure was revealed by the light--Schwarz, the German officer, in his pyjamas, with a helmet on his head and unlaced boots on his feet. The loose fat of the man, no longer girded by a belt, made him look like a mass of jelly as he had his shoulder to the door, shoving and grunting as he tried to force it open. He was swearing to himself in German, and, now and then, called out softly in French, in a kind of drunken German-French: “_Ouvrez, kleines Madchen, ma jolie Schatz. Ouvrez donc._” Madame Chéri was paralysed for a moment by a shock of horror; quite speechless and motionless. Then suddenly she moved forward and spoke in a fierce whisper. “What are you doing, beast?” Schwarz gave a queer snort of alarm. He stood swaying a little, with the helmet on the back of his head. The candlelight gleamed on its golden eagle. His face was hotly flushed and there was a ferocious look in his eyes. Madame Chéri saw that he was drunk.