And now I was there, and there frankly as a writer. Also I was a woman. I knew how the chivalrous English mind recoiled at the idea of a woman near the front. Their nurses were kept many miles in the rear. They had raised loud protests when three English women were permitted to stay at the front with the Belgian Army. My knees were a bit weak as I went up the steps and into the hotel. They would hardly arrest me. My letters were from very important persons indeed. But they could send me away with expedition and dispatch. I had run the Channel blockade to get there, and I did not wish to be sent away with expedition and dispatch. The hotel was cold and bare. Curious eyed officers came in, stared at me and went out. A French gentleman in a military cape walked round the bare room, spoke to the canaries in a great cage in the corner, and came back to where I sat with my fur coat, lap-robe fashion, over my knees. "_Pardon!_" he said. "Are you the Duchess of Sutherland?" I regretted that I was not the Duchess of Sutherland. "You came just now in a large car?" "I did." "You intend to stay here for some time?" "I have not decided." "Where did you come from?" "I think," I said after a rather stunned pause, "that I shall not tell you." "Madame is very cautious!" I felt convinced that he spoke with the authority of the army, or of the town _gendarmerie_, behind him. But I was irritated. Besides, I had been cautioned so much about telling where I had been, except in general terms, that I was even afraid to talk in my sleep. "I think," I said, "that it does not really matter where I came from, where I am going, or what I am doing here." I expected to see him throw back his cape and exhibit a sheriff's badge, or whatever its French equivalent. But he only smiled. "In that case," he said cheerfully, "I shall wish you a good morning." "Good-bye," I said coldly. And he took himself off. I have never solved the mystery of that encounter. Was he merely curious? Or scraping acquaintance with the only woman he had seen in months? Or was he as imposing a person as he looked, and did he go away for a warrant or whatever was necessary, and return to find me safe in the lap of the British Army? The canary birds sang, and a porter with a leather apron, having overcome a national inability to light a fire in the middle of the day, came to take me to my room. There was an odour of stewing onions in the air, and soapsuds, and a dog sniffed at me and barked because I addressed him in English. And then General Huguet came, friendly and smiling, and speaking English. And all was well.