'There's room for you with us, with the two kids as well.
We can take the children on our knees all right.
It's going to be hard going for the next few days; we'll be driving all night, in spells.
But if you can be ready in ten minutes with the other kid, I'll wait.'
The old man stared thoughtfully into the car.
It was a generous offer, made by a generous man.
There were four of them already in the car, and a great mass of luggage; it was difficult to see how another adult could be possibly squeezed in, let alone two children.
It was an open body, with an exiguous canvas hood and no side screens.
Driving all night in that through the mountains would be a bitter trial for a little girl of five with a temperature.
He said: 'It's very, very kind of you.
But really, I think we'd better make our own way.'
The other said: 'All right.
You've plenty of money, I suppose?'
The old man reassured him on that point, and the big car slid away and vanished down the road.
Ronnie watched it, half crying.
Presently he sniffed, and Howard noticed him.
'What's the matter?' he said kindly.
'What is it?'
There was no answer.
Tears were very near.
Howard searched his mind for childish trouble.
'Was it the motor-car?' he said.
'Did you think we were going to have a ride in it?'
The little boy nodded dumbly.
The old man stooped and wiped his eyes.
'Never mind,' he said.
'We'll wait till Sheila gets rid of her cold, and then we'll all go for a ride together.'
It was in his mind to hire a car, if possible, to take them all the way from Dijon to St Malo and the boat.
It would cost a good bit of money, but the emergency seemed to justify the expense.
'Soon?'
'Perhaps the day after tomorrow, if she's well enough to enjoy it with us.'
'May we go and see the camions and the chars de combat after dejeuner?
'If they're still there we'll go and see them, just for a little.'
He must do something to make up for the disappointment.
But when they reached the station yard, the lorries and the armoured cars were gone.
There were only a few decrepit-looking horses picketed beneath the tawdry advertisements for Byrrh and Pernod.
Up in the bedroom things were very happy.
La petite Rose was there, a shy little girl with long black hair and an advanced maternal instinct.
Already Sheila was devoted to her.
La petite Rose had made a rabbit from two of Howard's dirty handkerchiefs and three little bits of string, and this rabbit had a burrow in the bedclothes on Ronnie's side of the bed; when you said 'Boo' he dived back into his burrow, manipulated ingeniously by la petite Rose.
Sheila, bright-eyed, struggled to tell old Howard all about it in mixed French and English.
In the middle of their chatter three aeroplanes passed very low over the station and the hotel.
Howard undid his parcels, and gave Sheila the picture-book about Bahar the Elephant.
Babar was an old friend of la petite Rose, and well known; she took the book and drew Ronnie to the bed, and began to read the story to them.
The little boy soon tired of. it; aeroplanes were more in his line, and he went and leaned out of the window hoping to see another one go by.
Howard left them there, and went down to the hall of the hotel to telephone.
With great difficulty, and great patience, he got through at last to the hotel at Cidoton; obviously he must do his best to let Cavanagh know the difficulties of the journey.
He spoke to Madame Lucard, but the Cavanaghs had left the day before, to go back to Geneva.
No doubt they imagined that he was practically in England by that time.
He tried to put a call through to Cavanagh at the League of Nations in Geneva, and was told curtly that the service into Switzerland had been suspended.