Are they hungry?'
The children smiled shyly.
Howard said: 'Madame, they are always hungry.
But do not derange yourself; we can get dejeuner in the town perhaps?'
She said that that was not to be thought of.
'Nicole, stay with m'sieur for a little, while I make arrangements.'
She bustled off into the kitchen.
The girl turned to the old man. 'Will you sit down and rest a little,' she said.
'You seem to be very tired.'
She turned to the children. 'And you, too, you sit down and stay quiet; dejeuner will be ready before long.'
The old man looked down at his hands, grimed with dirt.
He had not washed properly, or shaved, since leaving Dijon.
'I am desolated that I should appear so dirty,' he said.
'Presently, perhaps I could wash?'
She smiled at him and he found comfort in her smile.
'It is not easy to keep clean in times like these,' she said.
'Tell me from the beginning, monsieur - how did you come to be in France at all?'
He lay back in the chair.
It would be better to tell her the whole thing; indeed, he was aching to tell somebody, to talk over his position.
'You must understand, mademoiselle,' he began, 'that I was in great trouble early in the year.
My only son was killed.
He was in the Royal Air Force, you know.
He was killed on a bombing raid.'
She said: 'I know, monsieur.
I have the deepest sympathy for you.'
He hesitated, not quite sure if he had understood her correctly.
Some idiom had probably misled him.
He went on: 'It was intolerable to stay in England.
I wanted a change of scene, to see new faces.'
He plunged into his story.
He told her about the Cavanaghs at Cidoton.
He told her of Sheila's illness, of their delay at Dijon.
He told her about the chambermaid, about la petite Rose.
He told her how they had become stranded at Joigny, and touched lightly on the horror of the Montargis road, because Pierre was with them in the room.
He told her about the Royal Air Force men, and about the little Dutch boy they had found in Pithiviers.
Then he sketched briefly how they had reached Chartres.
It took about a quarter of an hour tb tell, in the slow, measured, easy tones of an old man.
In the end she turned to him in wonder.
'So really, monsieur, none of these little ones have anything to do with you at all?'
'I suppose not,' he said, 'if you like to look at it that way.'
She pressed the point. 'But you could have left the two in Dijon for their parents to fetch from Geneva?
You would have been able then, yourself, to have reached England in good time.'
He smiled slowly.
'I suppose so.'
She stared at him.
'We French people will never understand the English,' she said softly. And then she turned aside.
He was a little puzzled.
'I beg your pardon?'
She got to her feet.
'You will wish to wash,' she said.