“Do you see that breach in the wall, down there behind the trees? It’s the only scratch the place has got. And think of Lennont! It’s incredible--simply incredible!” “But it’s like that everywhere, isn’t it? Everything depends on the officer in command.” “Yes: that’s it, I suppose. I haven’t had time to get a consecutive account of what happened: they’re all too excited. Mlle. Malo is the only person who can tell me exactly how things went.” He swung about on me. “Look here, it sounds absurd, what I’m asking; but try to get me an hour alone with her, will you?” I stared at the request, and he went on, still half-laughing: “You see, they all hang on me; my father and mother, Simone, the curé, the servants. The whole village is coming up presently: they want to stuff their eyes full of me. It’s natural enough, after living here all these long months cut off from everything. But the result is I haven’t said two words to her yet.” “Well, you shall,” I declared; and with an easier smile he turned to hurry down to a mass of thanksgiving which the curé was to celebrate in the private chapel. “My parents wanted it,” he explained; “and after that the whole village will be upon us. But later--” “Later I’ll effect a diversion; I swear I will,” I assured him. ***** By daylight, decidedly, Mlle. Malo was less handsome than in the evening. It was my first thought as she came toward me, that afternoon, under the limes. Jean was still indoors, with his people, receiving the village; I rather wondered she hadn’t stayed there with him. Theoretically, her place was at his side; but I knew she was a young woman who didn’t live by rule, and she had already struck me as having a distaste for superfluous expenditures of feeling. Yes, she was less effective by day. She looked older for one thing; her face was pinched, and a little sallow and for the first time I noticed that her cheek-bones were too high. Her eyes, too, had lost their velvet depth: fine eyes still, but not unfathomable. But the smile with which she greeted me was charming: it ran over her tired face like a lamp-lighter kindling flames as he runs. “I was looking for you,” she said. “Shall we have a little talk? The reception is sure to last another hour: every one of the villagers is going to tell just what happened to him or her when the Germans came.” “And you’ve run away from the ceremony?” “I’m a trifle tired of hearing the same adventures retold,” she said, still smiling. “But I thought there _were_ no adventures--that that was the wonder of it?” She shrugged. “It makes their stories a little dull, at any rate; we’ve not a hero or a martyr to show.” She had strolled farther from the house as we talked, leading me in the direction of a bare horse-chestnut walk that led toward the park. “Of course Jean’s got to listen to it all, poor boy; but I needn’t,” she explained.