The horn of a two days' moon was driving across the window; then stars, darkness, dawn and sunrise painted the open square; till rustling, and turning towards the light, she awoke. At the top of the window a magpie wiped his beak on a branch, bent head, and tail bent to balance him —then dropped like a mottled pebble out of sight. She sat up, drew the table prepared overnight towards her, lit the lamp for the chocolate —thinking of the dim Julien who might pay his beautiful visit in turn with the moon and the sun.

She got up and dressed, and walked in the spring morning, first to the bread shop to buy a pound of bread from the woman who wouldn't smile … so serious and puzzling was this defect that Fanny had once asked her: "Would you rather I didn't buy my bread here?"

"No, I don't mind."

Then to the market for a bunch of violets and an egg.

And at last through the "Silver Lion"—for luck, opening one door of black wood, passing through the hot, sunny room, ignoring the thrilled glances of soldiers drinking at the tables, looking towards the girl at the bar, who shook her head, saying: "No, no letter for you!" and out again into the street by the other black door (which was gold inside).

She passed the morning in the garage working on the Renault, cleaning her, oiling her—then ate her lunch in the garage room with the Section.

Among them there ran a rumour of England—of approaching demobilisation, of military driving that must come to an end, to give place to civilian drivers who, in Paris, were thronging the steps of the Ministry of the Liberated Regions.

"Already," said one, "our khaki seems as old-fashioned as a crinoline. A man said to me yesterday: 'It is time mademoiselle bought her dress for the summer!'"

(What dream was that of Julien, and of a summer spent in Charleville! The noise of England burst upon her ears. She heard the talk at parties—faces swam so close to hers that she looked in their eyes and spoke to them.)

And how the town is filling with men in new black coats, and women in shawls! Every day more and more arrive. And the civilians come first now! Down in the Co-operative I asked for a tin of milk, and I was told: 'We are keeping the milk for the "Civils."' 'For the "Civils"?' I said, for we are all accustomed to the idea that the army feeds first."

"Oh, that's all gone! We are losing importance now. It is time to go home."

As they spoke there came a shrill whistle which sounded through
Charleville.

"Ecoute!" said a man down the street, and the Section, moving to the window, heard it again, nameless, and yet familiar.

Unseen Charleville lifted its head and said, "Ecoute."

The first train had crawled over the new bridge, and stood whistling its triumph in the station.

As spring became more than a bright light over the mountains so the town in the hollow blossomed and functioned. The gate bells rang, the electric light ceased to glow in the daytime, great cranes came up on the trains and fished in the river for the wallowing bridges. Workmen arrived in the streets. In the early summer mornings tapping could be heard all about the town. Civilians in new black suits, civilians more or less damaged, limping or one-eyed, did things that made them happy with a hammer and a nail. They whistled as they tapped, nailed up shutters that had hung for four years by one hinge, climbed about the roofs and fixed a tile or two where a hundred were needed, brought little ladders on borrowed wheelbarrows and set them against the house-wall. In the house opposite, in the Rue de ClÈves, a man was using his old blue puttees to nail up his fruit-trees.

All the men worked in new Sunday clothes; they had, as yet, nothing old to work in. Every day brought more of them to the town, lorries and horse carts set them down by the "Silver Lion," and they walked along the street carrying black bags and rolls of carpet, boxes of tools, and sometimes a well-oiled carbine.

"Yes, we must go home," said the Englishwomen. "It's time to leave the town."

The "Civils" seemed to drive them out. They knew they were birds of passage as they walked in the sun in their khaki coats.

The "Civils" were blind to them, never looked at them, hurried on, longing to grasp the symbolic hammer, to dust, sweep out the German rags and rubbish, nail talc over the gaping windows, set their homes going, start their factories in the surrounding mountains, people the houses so long the mere shelter for passing troops, light the civilian life of the town, and set it burning after the ashes and dust of war.

There were days when every owner, black-trousered and in his shirt- sleeves, seemed to be burning the contents of his house in a bonfire in the gutter. Poor men burned things that seemed useful to the casual eye —mattresses, bolsters, all soiled, soiled again and polluted by four years of soldiery.

Idling over the fire in the evening, Fanny's eye was caught by a stain upon her armchair. It was sticky; it might well be champagne—the champagne which stuck even now to the bottoms of the glasses downstairs.

"I wonder if they will burn the chair—when they come back." Some one must come back, some day, even if Philippe's mother never came. She seemed to see the figure of the Turkish officer seated in her chair, just as the concierge had described him, stout, fezzed, resting his legs before her fire—or of the German, stretched back in the chair in the evening reading the copy of the WestfÄlisches Volksblatt she had found stuffed down in the corner of the seat.

How, how did that splash of wax come to be so high up on the face of the mirror? Had someone, some predecessor, thrown a candle in a temper? It puzzled her in the morning as she lay in bed.

On the polished wooden foot of the bed was burnt the outline of a face with a funny nose. A child's drawing. That was Philippe's. The nurse had cried at him in a rage, perhaps, and snatched the hot poker with which he drew—and that had made the long rushing burn that flew angrily across the wood from the base of the face's chin. "Oh, you've made it worse!" Philippe must have gibed.

("B"—who wrote "B" on the wall? The Bulgarian—)

She fell asleep.

The first bird, waking early, threw the image of the world across her lonely sleep. He squeaked alone, minute after minute, from his tree outside the window, thrusting forests, swamps, meadows, mountains in among her dreams. Then a fellow joined him, and soon all the birds were shouting from their trees. Slowly the room lightened till on the mantelpiece the buds of the apple blossom shone, till upon the wall the dark patch became an oil painting, till the painting showed its features —a castle, a river and a hill.

In the night the last yellow down had fallen from the palm upon the floor.

The common voice of the tin clock struck seven. And with it came women's voices—women's voices on the landing outside the door—the voice of the concierge and another's.'

Some instinct, some strange warning, sent the sleeper on the bed flying from it, dazed as she was. Snatching at the initialled cup of gold veining she thrust it behind the curtain on the window sill. An act of panic merely, for a second glance round the room convinced her that there was too much to be hidden, if hidden anything should be. With a leap she was back in bed, and drew the bedclothes up to her neck.

Then came the knock at the door.

"I am in bed," she called.

"Nevertheless, can I come in?" asked the concierge.

"You may come in."

The young woman came in and closed the door after her. She approached the bed and whispered—then glancing round the room with a shrug she picked up a dressing-gown and held it that Fanny might slip her arms into it.

"But what a time to come!"

"She has travelled all night. She is unfit to move."

"Must I see her now? I am hardly awake."

"I cannot keep her any longer. She was for coming straight here when the train came in at five. I have kept her at coffee at my house. Tant pis! You have a right to be here!"

The concierge drew the curtain a little wider and the cup was exposed. She thrust it back into the shadow; the door opened and Philippe's mother walked in. She was very tall, in black, and a deep veil hung before her face.

"Bonjour, madame," she said, and her veiled face dipped in a faint salute.

"Will you sit down?"

She took no notice of this, but leaning a little on a stick she carried, said, "I understand that it is right that I should find my house occupied. They told me it would be by an officer. Such occupation I believe ceases on the return of the owner."

"Yes, madame."

"I am the owner of this house."

"Yes."

"May I ask of what nationality you are?"

The concierge standing behind her, shrugged her shoulders impatiently, as if she would say, "I have explained, and explained again!"

"I am English, madame."

The lady seemed to sink into a stupor, and bending her head in silence stared at the floor. Fanny, sitting upright in bed, waited for her to speak. The >concierge, her face still as an image, waited too.

Philippe's mother began to sway upon her stick.

"Do please sit down," said Fanny, breaking the silence at last.

"When will you go?" demanded the old lady, suddenly.

"Go?"

"Who gave you that lamp? That is mine." She pointed to a glass lamp which stood upon the table.

"It is all yours," said Fanny, humbly.

"Mademoiselle borrowed it," said the voice of the concierge. "I lent it to her."

"Why are my things lent when I am absent? My armchair—dirty, soiled, torn! Paul's picture—there is a hole in the corner. Who made that hole in the corner?"

"I didn't," said Fanny feebly, wishing that she were dressed and upon her feet.

"Madame, a Turkish officer made the hole. I spoke to him about it; he said it was the German colonel who was here before him. But I am sure it was the Turk."

"A Turk!" said Philippe's mother in bewilderment. "So you have allowed a
Turk to come in here!"

"Madame does not understand."

"Oh, I understand well enough that my house has been a den! The house where I was born—All my things, all my things—You must give that lamp back!"

"Dear madame, I will give everything back, I have hurt nothing—"

"Not ruined my carpet, my mother's carpet! Not soiled my walls, written your name upon them, cracked my windows, filled my room downstairs with rubbish, broken my furniture—But I am told this is what I must expect!" Fanny looked at her, petrified. "But I—" she began.

"You don't understand," said the young concierge fiercely. "Don't you know who has lived here? In this room, in this bed, Turks, Bulgars, Germans. Four years of soldiers, coming in one week and gone the next. I could not stop it! When other houses were burnt I would say to myself, 'Madame is lucky.' When all your china was broken and your chairs used for firewood, could I help it? Can she help it? She is your last soldier, and she has taken nothing. So much has gone from this house it is not worth while to worry about what remains. When you wrote to me last month to send you the barometer, it made me smile. Your barometer!"

"Begone, Elsie."

"No, madame, no! Not till you come back with me. They should not have let you come alone. But you were always wilful. You cannot mean to live here?"

"I wish this woman gone to-day. I wish to sleep here to-night."

"No, madame, no. Sleep in the house opposite to-night. Give her time to find a lodging—"

"A lodging! She will find a lodging soon enough. A town full of soldiers—" muttered the old woman.

"I think this is a question for the billeting lieutenant," said Fanny. "He will explain to you that I am billeted here exactly as a soldier, that I have a right to be here until your arrival. It will be kind of you to give me a day in which to find another room."

"Where are his things?" said the old woman unheedingly. "I must go up to the attics."

A vision of those broken toys came to Fanny, the dusty heap of horses, dolls and boxes—the poor disorder.

"You mustn't, yet!" she cried with feeling. "Rest first. Sit here longer first. Or go another day!"

"Have you touched them?" cried Philippe's mother, rising from the chair. "I must go at once, at once——" but even as she tried to cross the room she leant heavily upon the table and put her hand to her heart. "Get me water, Elsie," she said, and threw up her veil. Her ruined face was grey even at the lips; her eyes were caverns, worn by the dropping of water, her mouth was folded tightly that nothing kind or hopeful, or happy might come out of it again. Elsie ran to the washing-stand. Unfortunately she seized the glass with the golden scrolling, and when she held it to the lips of her mistress those lips refused it.

"That, too, that glass of mine! Elsie, I wish this woman gone. Why don't you get up? Where are your clothes? Why don't you dress and go—"

"Madame, hush, hush, you are ill."

"Ah!" dragging herself weakly to the door, "I must take an inventory. That is what I should have done before! If I don't make a list at once I shall lose something!"

"Take an inventory!" exclaimed the concierge mockingly, as she followed her. "The house won't change! After four years—it isn't now that it will change!" She paused at the door and looked back at Fanny. "Don't worry about the room, mademoiselle. She is like that—elle a des crises. She cannot possibly sleep here. Keep the room for a day or two till you find another."

"In a very few days I shall be going to England."

"Keep it a week if necessary. She will be persuaded when she is calmer.
Why did they let her come when they wrote me that she was a dying woman!
But no—elle est comme toujours—mÉchante pour tout le monde."

"You told me she thought only of Philippe."

"Ah, mademoiselle, she is like many of us! She has still her sense of property."