still, at times. The convent doesn’t develop character. I’m glad Yvonne was not brought up in a convent.” And this champion of tradition smiled on me more intensely.     

       Little by little I got from her the story of the German approach: the distracted fugitives pouring in from the villages north of Réchamp, the sound of distant cannonading, and suddenly, the next afternoon, after a reassuring lull, the sight of a single spiked helmet at the end of the drive. In a few minutes a dozen followed: mostly officers; then all at once the place hummed with them. There were supply waggons and motors in the court, bundles of hay, stacks of rifles, artillery-men unharnessing and rubbing down their horses. The crowd was hot and thirsty, and in a moment the old lady, to her amazement, saw wine and cider being handed about by the Réchamp servants. “Or so at least I was told,” she added, correcting herself, “for it’s not my habit to look out of the window. I simply sat here and waited.” Her seat, as she spoke, might have been a curule chair.     

       Downstairs, it appeared, Mlle. Malo had instantly taken her measures. She didn’t sit and wait. Surprised in the garden with Simone, she had made the       girl walk quietly back to the house and receive the officers with her on the doorstep. The officer in command—captain, or whatever he was—had arrived in a bad temper, cursing and swearing, and growling out menaces about spies. The day was intensely hot, and possibly he had had too much wine. At any rate Mlle. Malo had known how to “put him in his place”; and when he and the other officers entered they found the dining-table set out with refreshing drinks and cigars, melons, strawberries and iced coffee.       “The clever creature! She even remembered that they liked whipped cream with their coffee!”      

       The effect had been miraculous. The captain—what was his name? Yes, Chariot, Chariot—Captain Chariot had been specially complimentary on the subject of the whipped cream and the cigars. Then he asked to see the other members of the family, and Mlle. Malo told him there were only two—two old women! “He made a face at that, and said all the same he should like to meet them; and she answered: ‘One is your hostess, the Comtesse de Réchamp, who is ill in bed’—for my poor daughter-in-law was lying in bed paralyzed with rheumatism—‘and the other her mother-in-law, a very old lady who never leaves her room.’”      

 

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