and shouted greetings. Then her father’s slouching tread and a brisk military stride. Then her father’s voice: “Mad’leine, here is Victor Dequidt, home on leave!” She got up, pushed the ever-ready coffee-pot over the heat of the fire, and greeted the guest. He was the son of a neighboring farmer, and if she ever bothered her head about such things, Madeleine was perhaps conscious deep down in herself that he liked her more than a little. They had played together as children, grown to adolescence together, had experiences in common, wandering in the Kruysabel. But ever since her mother’s death had forced her to early maturity, Madeleine had been very busy, then, with Georges, very busy and very happy, and since the War, very busy and preoccupied. Any memories of Victor hardly disturbed the surface of her mind. If he liked to follow her about with his blue eyes, and pay her small compliments, why, let him. Most men looked at her, so might he. She poured him out coffee, and some of the rum she had got from the quartermasters of various English units, and listened politely, but without interest, to his talk. It was the usual talk of men on leave. All that he said was being said in English, French, German, Italian, during years, whenever men got home for a few brief days. It was about food, railways, jokes, old acquaintances--never about the cosmic murder in which they were engaged, or their daily decreasing belief that they might escape alive. In the middle of the commonplaces that she had heard from different lips a hundred times in that kitchen, Madeleine heard the words: “It was a good job, that stretcher-bearing business at the hospital, miles from the line--good food--a bunk to sleep in at night, and who do you think was the last stretcher-case I carried?” Silence. Old Vanderlynden was not good at guessing. Madeleine was bored. Victor went on: “Why, the young Baron Georges!” Silence again. Old Vanderlynden, who could hardly see to fill his pipe, said: “It’s as dark as a nigger’s back in here!” and held a paper spill to the candle on the mantelshelf. Madeleine cried with a stamp of her foot: “Don’t light up! don’t light up!” Her father obediently lit his pipe, knocked out the half-burnt spill against the fireplace and put it back. Victor, disappointed at the way his anecdote was received, said gallantly: “One sees you are a good housekeeper, and not one to burn good money!”