In the meantime old Hans waxed financially fat, bought a new Sunday suit, worked the life out of his girls, and prayed nightly that the Canadians would arrive in the vicinity of his particular “Somewhere in Belgium.” In a little while they came. Blossoming forth like a vine well fertilised at the roots, the little shop became more and more pretentious as the weekly turnover increased. Any day that the receipts fell below a certain level old Beduys raised such a storm that his bevy of daughters redoubled their efforts. Martha had become an enthusiastic business woman. Her fair head with its golden curls was bent for many hours in the day over a crude kind of ledger, and she thought in terms of pickles, canned fruits, chocolate, and cigarettes. The spirit of commerce had bitten deep into Martha’s soul. More and more officers held impromptu dinners in the back parlour. Martha knew most of them, but only one interested her. Had he not shown her the system of double entry, and how to balance her accounts? He was a commercial asset. As for Jefferson, it was a relief to him, after a tour in the trenches, to have an occasional chat with a moderately pretty girl. One rain-sodden, murky January night, very weary, wet, and muddy, Jefferson dropped in to see, as he would have put it, “the baker’s daughter.” Martha happened to be alone, and welcomed “Monsieur Jeff” beamingly. Perhaps the dim light of the one small lamp, perhaps his utter war weariness, induced Jefferson to overlook the coarseness of the girl’s skin, her ugly hands, and large feet. Perhaps Martha was looking unusually pretty. At all events he suddenly decided that she was desirable. Putting his arm around her waist as she brought him his coffee, he drew her, unresisting, on to his knee. Then he kissed her. Heaven knows what possessed Martha that evening. She not only allowed his kisses, but returned them, stroking his curly hair with a tenderness that surprised herself as much as it surprised him. Thereafter Martha had two souls. A soul for business and a soul for Jefferson. The bleak winter rolled on and spring came.