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Rh would not be comfortable. "Mais, que voulez-vous, M'sieur? c'est la guerre."

At first he had not been genial; but when he had grasped the fact that mufti invariably cloaked the British officer, en permission, he had become more friendly.

He advised dinner; in these days, as he truly remarked, one never knows. Also, what was England going to do?

"Fight," Draycott answered promptly, with an assurance he did not feel. "Fight, mon Colonel; ça va sans dire."

"C'est bien," he murmured, and stood up. "Vive l'Angleterre." Gravely he saluted, and Draycott took off his hat.

"Mon Colonel, vive la France." They shook hands; and having once again solemnly saluted one another, he took the Frenchman's advice and went in search of dinner.

In the restaurant itself everything seemed normal. To the close observer there was possibly an undue proportion of women who did not eat, but who watched with hungry, loving eyes the men who were with them. Now and again one would look round, and in her face was the pitiful look of the hunted animal; then he would speak, and with a smile on her lips and a jest on her tongue she would cover a heart that seemed like to burst with the agony of it. Inexorably the clock moved on: the finger of fate that was to take him from her. They had quarrelled, sans doute—who has not? there had been days when