knew them. But all soldiers were the same. They thought that in time
of war civilians had no rights. One of these days she would get up and
come downstairs and see for herself the robbery that was going on.

The windows were tightly sealed. The sunlight hurting Aunt Morin's
eyes, the outside shutters were half closed. The room felt like a
stuffy, overheated, overcrowded sepulchre. An enormous oak press, part
of her Breton dowry, took up most of the side of one wall. This, and a
great handsome chest, a couple of tables, a stiff arm-chair, were all
too big for the moderately sized apartment. Coloured prints of sacred
subjects, tilted at violent angles, seemed eager to occupy as much
air-space as possible. And in the middle of the floor sprawled the
vast oaken bed, with its heavy green brocade curtains falling tentwise
from a great tarnished gilt crown in the ceiling.

Jeanne said nothing. What was the good? She shifted the invalid's hot
pillow and gave her a drink of tisane, moving about the
over-furnished, airless room in her calm and efficient way. Her face
showed no sign of trouble, but an iron band clamped her forehead above
her burning eyes. She could perform her nurse's duties, but it was
beyond her power to concentrate her mind on the sick woman's unending
litany of grievances. Far away beyond that darkened room, beyond that
fretful voice, she saw vividly a hot waste, hideous with holes and
rusted wire and shapes of horror; and in the middle of it lay huddled
up a little khaki-clad figure with the sun blazing fiercely in his
unblinking eyes. And his very body was beyond the reach of man, even
of the most lion-hearted.

"_Mais qu'as-tu, ma fille?_" asked Aunt Morin. "You do not speak. When
people are ill they need to be amused."

"I am sorry, _ma tante_, but I am not feeling very well to-day. It
will pass."

"I hope so. Young people have no business not to feel well. Otherwise
what is the good of youth?"

"It is true," Jeanne assented.

But what, she thought, was indeed the good of youth, in these terrible
days of war? Her own was but a panorama of death.... And now one more
figure, this time one of youth too, had joined it.

Toinette came in.

"Ma'amselle Jeanne, there are two English officers downstairs who wish
to speak to you."

"What do they want?" Jeanne asked wearily.

"They do not say. They just ask for Ma'amselle Bossiere."

"They never leave one in peace, _ces gens-la_," grumbled Aunt Morin.