Then she said:
'You are English, aren't you?'
He nodded without speaking.
She said: 'You had better go away, before anybody sees you.'
He turned and called the children to him, and walked over to the pram.
Then, pushing it in front of hun, he went towards the gate.
She called after him: 'Where are you going to?'
He stopped and said:
'To Chartres.' And then he could have bitten out his tongue for his indiscretion.
She said: 'By the tram?'
He repeated uncertainly: 'The tram?'
'It passes at ten minutes past eight.
There is still half an hour.'
He had forgotten the light railway, running by the road.
Hope of a lift to Chartres surged up in him.
'Is it still running, madame?'
'Why not?
These Germans say that they have brought us Peace.
Well then, the tram will run.'
He thanked her and went out on to the road.
A quarter of a mile farther on he came to a place where the track crossed the road; here he waited, and fed the children on the biscuits he had bought the day before, with a little of the chocolate.
Presently, a little puff of steam announced the little narrow-gauge train, the so-called tram.
Three hours later they walked out into the streets of Chartres, still pushing the pram.
It was as easy as that; a completely uneventful journey.
Chartres, like Angerville, was full of Germans.
They swarmed everywhere, particularly in the luxury shops, buying with paper money silk stockings, underclothes, and all sorts of imported food.
The whole town seemed to be on holiday.
The troops were clean and well disciplined; all day Howard saw nothing in their behaviour to complain of, apart from their very presence.
They were constrained in their behaviour, scrupulously correct, uncertain, doubtful of their welcome.
But in the shops there was no doubt about it; they were spending genuine French paper money and spending it like water.
If there were any doubts in Chartres, they stayed behind the locked doors of the banks.
In a telephone-booth the old man found the name of Rougeron in the directory; they lived in an apartment in the Rue Vaugiraud.
He did not ring up, feeling the matter to be a little difficult for the telephone.
Instead, he asked the way, and walked round to the place, still pushing the pram, the children trailing after him.
Rue Vaugiraud was a narrow street of tall, grey shuttered houses.
He rang the bell of the house, and the door opened silently before him, disclosing the common staircase.
Rougeron lived on the second floor.
He went upstairs slowly, for he was rather short of breath, the children following him.
He rang the bell of the apartment.
There was the sound of women's voices from behind the door.
There was a step and the door opened before him.
It was the daughter; the one that he remembered eighteen months before at Cidoton.
She said: 'What is it?'
In the passage it was a little dark.
'Mademoiselle,' he said, 'I have come to see your father, monsieur le colonel.
I do not know if you will remember me; we have met before.
At Cidoton.'
She did not answer for a moment.
The old man blinked his eyes; in his fatigue it seemed to him that she was holding tight on to the door.
He recognised her very well.