By all the rules of polite intercourse, either Doggie should have made his bow and exit, or the maiden, exercising her prerogative, should have given him the opportunity of a graceful withdrawal. But they remained where they were, the girl framed by the doorway, the lithe little figure in khaki and lichen-coloured helmet looking up at her from the foot of the two front steps. At last he said in some embarrassment: "That's a very beautiful cask of yours." She wavered for a few seconds. Then she said: "You can enter, monsieur, and examine it, if you like." Mademoiselle was very amiable, said Doggie. Mademoiselle moved aside and Doggie entered, taking off his helmet and holding it under his arm like an opera-hat. There was nothing much to see in the little vestibule-parlour: a stiff tasselled chair or two, a great old linen-press taking up most of one side of a wall, a cheap table covered with a chenille tablecloth, and the resplendent old cask, about which he lingered. He mentioned Brittany. Her tragic face lighted up again. Monsieur was right. Her aunt, Madame Morin, was Breton, and had brought the cask with her as part of her dowry, together with the press and other furniture. Doggie alluded to the vastly lettered inscription, "Veuve Morin et Fils." Madame Morin was, in a sense, his hostess. And the sons? "One is in Madagascar, and the other--alas, monsieur!" And Doggie knew what that "alas!" meant. "The Argonne," she said. "And madame your aunt?" She shrugged her thin though shapely shoulders. "It nearly killed her. She is old and an invalid. She has been in bed for the last three weeks." "Then what becomes of the business?" "It is I, monsieur, who am the business. And I know nothing about it." She sighed. Then with her blue apron--otherwise she was dressed in unrelieved black--she rubbed an imaginary speck from the brass banding of the cask. "This, I suppose you know, was for the best brandy, monsieur." "And now?" he asked. "A memory. A sentiment. A thing of beauty." In a feminine way, which he understood, she herded him to the door, by way of dismissal. Durdlebury helped him. A tiny French village has as many slanderous tongues as an English cathedral city. He was preparing to take polite leave, when she looked swiftly at him and made the faintest gesture of a detaining hand. "Now I remember. It was you who nearly fell into me last night, when you were entering through the gate." The dim recollection came back--the firm woman's arm round him for the few tottering seconds. "It seems I am always bound to be impolite, for I don't think I thanked you," smiled Doggie. "You were at the end of your tether." Then very gently, "_Pauvre garcon!_" "The _sales Boches_ had kept us awake for four nights," said Doggie. "That was why." "And you are rested now?" He laughed. "Almost."