She smiled.
'I know what it is, travelling with children.'
He dined with them that night, and went early to bed.
He was pleasantly tired, and slept very well; he woke early, as he usually did, and lay in bed revolving in his mind all the various matters that he had to attend to.
Finally he got up, feeling uncommonly well.
It did not occur to him that this was because he had a job to do, for the first time in many months.
The next day was spent in a flutter of business.
The children were taking little with them in the way of luggage; one small portmanteau held the clothes for both of them.
With their mother to assist him the old man learned the intricacies of their garments, and how they went to bed, and what they had to eat.
Once Mrs Cavanagh stopped and looked at him.
'Really,' she said, 'you'd rather that I came with you to Paris, wouldn't you?'
'Not in the least,' he said.
'I assure you, they will be quite all right with me.'
She stood silent for a minute.
'I believe they will,' she said slowly.
'Yes, I believe they'll be all right with you.'
She said no more about Paris.
Cavanagh had returned to Geneva, but he turned up again that night for dinner.
He took Howard aside and gave him the money for their journey.
'I can't tell you how terribly grateful we are to you,' he muttered.
'It just makes all the difference to know that the kids will be in England.'
The old man said: 'Don't worry about them any more.
They'll be quite safe with me.
I've had children of my own to look after, you know.'
He did not dine with them that night, judging it better to leave them alone together with the children.
Everything was ready for his journey; his portmanteaux were packed, his rods in the long tubular travelling-case.
There was nothing more to be done.
He went up to his room.
It was bright moonlight, and he stood for a while at his window looking out over the pastures and the woods towards the mountains.
It was very quiet and still.
He turned uneasily from the window.
It had no right to be so peaceful, here in the Jura.
Two or three hundred miles to the north the French were fighting desperately along the Somme; the peace in Cidoton was suddenly unpleasant to him, ominous.
The bustle and the occupation that his charge of the children had brought to him had changed his point of view; he now wanted very much to be in England, in a scene of greater action.
He was glad to be leaving.
The peace of Cidoton had helped him over a bad time, but it was time that he moved on.
Next morning all was bustle.
He was down early, but the children and their parents were before him.
They all had their petit dejeuner together in the dining-room; as a last lesson Howard learned to soften the crusts of the rolls for the children by soaking them in coffee.
Then the old Chrysler was at the door to take them down to Saint-Claude.
The leave-taking was short and awkward.
Howard had said everything that there was to say to the Cavanaghs, and the children were eager to climb into the car.
It meant nothing to them that they were leaving their mother, possibly for years; the delicious prospect of a long drive to Saint-Claude and a day and a night in a real train with a steam engine filled their minds.
Their father and mother kissed them, awkward and red-faced, but the meaning of the parting escaped the children altogether.
Howard stood by, embarrassed.
Mrs Cavanagh muttered: 'Good-bye, my darlings,' and turned away.
Ronald said: 'May I sit by the driver?'
Sheila said: 'I want to sit by the driver, too.'
Howard stepped forward.
'You're both going to sit behind with me.'