'They go ever so fast, and all the guns go bang, bang, bang.'
He turned to Howard.
'Are they going to-stay here all night?'
'I don't know.
I expect they will.
Come on, now; Sheila will want her tea.
I expect you want yours, too.'
Food was a magnet, but Ronnie looked back longingly over his shoulder.
'May we come and see them tomorrow?'
'If they're still here.'
Things were still happy in the bedroom.
La petite Rose, it seemed, knew a game which involved the imitation of animals in endless repetition- My great-aunt lives in Tours, In a house with a cherry-tree With a little mouse (squeak, squeak) And a big lion (roar, roar) And a wood pigeon (coo, coo)... and so on quite indefinitely.
It was a game that made no great demand on the intelligence, and Sheila wanted nothing better.
Presently, they were all playing it; it was so that the femme de chambre found them.
She came in with the tea, laughing all over her face.
'In Touraine I learned that, as a little girl, myself,' she said.
'It is pretty, is it not?
All children like "my great-aunt lives in Tours" - always, always.
In England, monsieur, do the children play like that?'
'Much the same,' he said.
'Children in every country play the same games.'
He gave them their milk and bread and butter and jam.
Near the Bureau de Ville he had seen a shop selling ginger-bread cakes, the tops of which were covered in crystallised fruits and sweets. He had bought one of these; as he was quite unused to housekeeping it was three times as large as was necessary.
He cut it with his pen-knife on the dressing-table and they all had a slice.
It was a very merry tea-party, so merry that the grinding of caterpillar tracks and the roaring of exhausts outside the window passed them by unnoticed.
They played a little more after tea; then he washed the children as the femme de chambre re-made the bed.
She helped him to undress them and put them into their new pyjamas; then she held Sheila on her capacious lap while the old man took her temperature carefully under the arm.
It was still a degree or so above normal, though the child was obviously better; whatever had been wrong with her was passing off.
It would not be right, he decided, to travel on the next day; he had no wish to be held up with another illness in less comfortable surroundings..
But on the day after that, he thought it should be possible to get away.
If they started very early in the morning they would get through to St Malo in the day.
He would see about the car that night.
Presently, both the children were in bed, and kissed good night.
He stood in the passage outside the room with the femme de chambre and her little girl.
'Tonight, monsieur,' she said, 'presently, when they are asleep, I will bring a mattress and make up a bed for monsieur on the floor.
It will be better than the arm-chair, that.'
'You are very kind,' he said.
'I don't know why you should be so very, very good to us.
I am most grateful.'
She said: 'But monsieur, it is you who are kind...'
He went down to the lobby, wondering a little at the effusive nature of the French.
Again the hotel was full of officers.
He pushed his way to the desk and said to the girl:
'I want to hire a car, not now, but the day after tomorrow - for a long journey.
Can you tell me which garage would be the best?'
She said: 'For a long journey, monsieur?
How far?'
'To St Malo, in Normandy.
The little girl is still not very well.
I think it will be easier to take her home by car.'