Madeleine realized that she was an object of admiring interest, with who-knows-what history invented for her by Cécile. She pushed it all aside. “I had better things to do than to go moldy in an office. Now, Monsieur Blanquart, for the month of March, there is only seventy-five francs marked down. How do you explain it?” and so on. * * * * * She came back from the village across the fields, scrutinizing the crops, the workers, the new drains and telegraph wires the English were putting in everywhere. Already, in a few hours, her short assumption of town life and habit was dropping from her. She had put it away with the town hats Skene and Georges had bought for her, in the “cardboard,” on the half-tester of her bed. She went bareheaded, already stepping longer and holding her skirt, with both hands, up from the wetness of the knee-high root crops, and away from the waist-high grains. Her illness had squared and filled out her figure, deprived it of its virginal severity, and now the refinement that indoor life, suffering, and impaired health had given to her features and skin, was yielding before fresh air, good food, vigorous action, and the habit of command. Only her straight glance, and erect carriage, that she had taken to town remained as the town was forgotten. The town could not take those from her, the country could only confirm them. Two officers’ servants, who had let the chargers they were leading graze surreptitiously on the rich second cut of the water-meadows by the little stream that issued from the moat, hastily pulled up the horses’ heads, and resumed the road. She had made herself known to the new unit that morning, already. In the dark passage she ran into a dragoon-like figure, that even her accustomed eyes mistook for the moment for that of a soldier. Then she saw who it was, swallowed a lump in the throat, and said: “Hold, it is you, Placide, enter then, and be seated!” “Ah, it is you, Madeleine, returned. How do you go on?” “But well! and you? You can surely take a cup of coffee!” “I shall not say no! One wants something to give courage in these times that are passing!” Madeleine was busy over the coffee-pot, and only said: “Monsieur the Baron and Madame the Baronne have had a sad loss!” Placide sighed like an eight-day clock running down, and then began. It took ten minutes for her to give her description of the reception of the news of Georges’ death at the château--of Monsieur’s fit of crying and swearing--of Madame’s fainting and prayers. Madeleine stood before her, hands on hips, planted, resisting the sudden, unexpected agony of reviving grief. When Placide remembered what she had come for (eggs and anthracite) and had gone, accompanied by a Belgian with a barrow, Madeleine poured her untasted coffee carefully back into the pot, and slipped out by the back door and away over the fields.