Sheila was different.
She was quite unlike the child that he had known in Cidoton, peevish and fretful, and continually crying without energy.
The old man tried a variety of ways to rouse her interest, without a great deal of success.
An hour and forty minutes later, when he was thoroughly worn out, the train for Dijon pulled into the station.
It was very full, but he managed to find one seat in a first-class carriage and took Sheila on his knee, where she fell asleep again before so very long.
Ronnie stood by the door looking out of the window, chattering in French to a fat old woman in a corner.
Presently this woman leaned forward to Howard.
She said: 'Your little one has fever, is it not so?'
Startled, he said in French:
'But no.
She is a little tired.'
She fixed him with beady black eyes.
'She has a fever.
It is not right to bring a child with fever in the train.
It is not hygienic.
I do not like to travel with a child that has a fever.'
'I assure you, madame,' he said, 'you deceive yourself.' But a horrible suspicion was creeping over him.
She appealed to the rest of the carriage.
'I,' she ejaculated, '- it is I who deceive myself, then!
Let me tell you, m'sieur, it is not I who deceive myself.
But no, certainly.
It is you, m'sieur, truly, you who are deceived.
I tell you that your little one has fever, and you do very wrong to bring her in a train with others who are healthy.
Look at her colour, and her skin!
She has scarlet fever, or chicken-pox, or some horrible disease that clean people do not get.'
She turned vehemently to the others in the carriage.
'Imagine, bringing a child in that condition in the train!'
There was a grunt from the other occupants.
One said:
'It is not correct.
It should not be allowed.'
Howard turned to the woman. 'Madame,' he said, 'you have children of your own, I think?'
She snorted at him.
'Five,' she said.
'But never have I travelled with a child in that condition.
It is not right, that.'
He said: 'Madame, I ask for your help.
These children are not my own, but I am taking them to England for a friend, because in these times it is better that children should be in their own country.
I did not know the little one was feverish.
Tell me, what would you do, as her mother?'
She shrugged her shoulder, still angry.
'I?
I have nothing to do with it at all, m'sieur, I assure you of that.
I would say, let children of that age stay with their mother.
That is the place for such children.
It is getting hot and travelling in trains that gives children fever.'
With a sinking heart Howard realised that there was some truth in what she said.
From the other end of the carriage somebody said:
'English children are very often ill.
The mothers do not look after their children properly.