Madeleine explained the offer to the Baron, who thanked the Colonel profusely, saying that it was worthy of one gentleman to another. The Colonel not understanding, when his mouth was empty, bowed as one unaccustomed and inquired: “It is his wife, isn’t it, all correct?” Madeleine confirmed that the Baroness was “all correct.” But the Baroness was an obstacle. First Placide, then the Baron himself went up to see her. She would only moan: “No, let them kill me, I shall see him again all the sooner. Besides, it is too late, and I am at least warm with the calorifère!” Then Madeleine went up. There was nothing dramatic in the meeting between those two, the mother and the mistress of a dead man. Madeleine said steadily: “Madame, Monsieur Georges would prefer you to go!” “You think so?” “I am sure, madame!” “In that case, I will!” Madeleine helped her. But no one, unless it was the French interpreter, realized the pathos of the moment. The limber had been furnished with cushions, a small trunk, and a wooden box of Placide’s. The driver had announced that he was “going by the dirt roads, it’s easier for wimmen.” Then that faded lady kissed the man whom she had married because the Second Empire told her to, and replied to his “Courage, Eugènie,” simply: “I think I shall not catch cold!” and went away in an army limber, with Placide stalking behind. * * * * * Madeleine watched them go. Alone of all those present she, perhaps, noticed the change which seemed to settle down on the house, almost at once. It was not yet abandoned, but its women, its natural guardians, had gone from it. The orderly, ration “fag” in mouth, cleared the table with a clatter, spilling grease on the floor. The marble overmantel, between the vases a former D’Archeville had brought from the sack of Pekin, and the Sèvres clock, became, as though by magic, littered with pipes, ashes, revolver ammunition, maps, indelible pencils--all the flotsam of men campaigning far from the decencies of property and housewifery. She tried to get the Baron on one side, having not for a moment forgotten her business at the château, but he was busy giving the Colonel, and a young officer who had come quietly in, as if by chance, some detail of the district. Before she could make her wants known, the Colonel, who had swept back the cloth, silver salts, plates, flower vases, all at one sweep, planted his 1 in 40,000 army map, and had his finger on the square pasture, and centerless E of building labeled “Ferme l’éspagnole”--the Spanish Farm. “That belongs to mademoiselle,” the interpreter interposed, prompted by the Baron, indicating her. “Arthur,” said the Colonel to the young officer, “your platoon can make a ‘strong point’ there, where the roads join, and sleep in the house, while it’s worth it!”