n, gravely: "There are, in my
room, a number of artists' _toiles_--old chassis with the blank canvas
still untouched."

"Exactly what we need!" exclaimed the other. "What luck, now, to meet a
painter in such a place as this!"

"They belonged to my father," explained Wayland. "We--Marie-Josephine and
I--have always kept my father's old canvases and colours--everything of
his.... I'll be glad to give them to a British soldier.... They're about
all I have that was his--except that oak chair you sit on."

He rose on his crutches, spoke briefly in Breton to Marie-Josephine, then
limped slowly away to his room.

When he returned with half a dozen blank canvases the flight-lieutenant,
at table, was eating pork and black bread and drinking Breton cider.

Wayland seated himself, laid both crutches across his knees, picked up one
of the chassis, and began to rip from it the dusty canvas. It was like
tearing muscles from his own bones. But he smiled and chatted on,
casually, with the air-officer, who ate as though half starved.

"I suppose," said Wayland, "you'll start back across the Channel as soon
as you secure petrol enough?"

"Yes, of course."

"You could go by way of Quimper or by Lorient. There's petrol to be had at
both places for military purposes"--leisurely continuing to rip the big
squares of canvas from the frames.

The airman, still eating, watched him askance at intervals.

"I've brought what's left of the shellac; it isn't much use, I fear. But
here is his hammer and canvas stretcher, and the remainder of the nails he
used for stretching his canvases," said Wayland, with an effort to speak
carelessly.

"Many thanks. You also are a painter, I take it."

Wayland laid one hand on the sleeve of his uniform and laughed.

"I _was_ a writer. But there are only soldiers in the world now."

"Quite so ... This is an odd place for an American to live in."

"My father bought it years ago. He was a painter of peasant life." He
added, lowering his voice, although Marie-Josephine understood no English:
"This old peasant woman was his model many years ago. She also kept house
for him. He lived here; I was born here."

"Really?"

"Yes, but my father desired that I grow up a good Yankee. I was at school
in America when he--died."

The airman continued to eat very busily.

"He died--out there"--Wayland looked through the window, musingly. "There
was an Iceland schooner wrecked off the Isle des Chouans. And no