'See,' she said, 'one must put down a palliasse, or there will be no room left by the wall.'
She got to her feet and stirred him, and began to pull down one of the sacks of straw from the pile.
He joined her, reluctant and confused, and for a quarter of an hour they worked, making their beds.
'There,' she said at last, standing back to survey their work.
'It is the best that can be done.'
She eyed him diffidently.
'Will it be possible for you to sleep so, Monsieur Howard?'
He said: 'My dear, of course it will.'
She laughed shortly.
'Then, let us try.'
Over the palliasses he stood looking at her, blanket in hand.
'May I ask one more question?'
She faced him:
'Yes, monsieur.'
'You have been very good to me,' he said quietly.
'I think I understand now.
That was because of John?'
There was a long silence.
She stood looking out across the room, motionless.
'No,' she said at last.
'That was because of the children.'
He said nothing, not quite understanding what she meant.
'One loses faith,' she said quietly.
'One thinks that everything is false and bad.'
He glanced at her, puzzled.
'I did not think there could be anyone so kind and brave as John,' she said.
'But I was wrong, monsieur.
There was another one.
There was his father.'
She turned away.
'So,' she said, 'we must sleep.'
She spoke practically, almost coldly; it seemed to the old man that she had set up a barrier between them.
He did not resent that; he understood the reason for her curtness.
She did not want to be questioned any more.
She did not want to talk.
He lay down on the palliasse, shifted the rough, straw-filled pillow and pulled the blanket round him.
The girl settled down on her own bed on the other side of the children.
Howard lay awake, his mind in a tumult.
He felt that he had known that there had been something between this girl and John, yet that knowledge had not reached the surface of his mind.
But looking back, there had been little hints all the time that he had been with them in the flat.
Indeed, she had used John's very words about a cocktail when she had said in English that: 'A little bit of what you fancy does you good.' Thinking back, he remembered the little twinges of pain that he had suffered when she had said that and yet he had not realised.
How close had their friendship been, then?
They had written freely to each other; on top of that it seemed that they had met in Paris just before the war.
No breath of that had reached him previously.
But thinking back, he could remember now that there had been a space of two week-ends in June when he had seen nothing of the boy; he had assumed that duties with the squadron had prevented him from coming over to see him, or even from ringing up.
Was that the time?
It must have been.
His mind turned to Nicole.
He had thought her a very odd young woman previously; he did not think of her in quite the same way now.
Dimly he began to realise a little of her difficulties with regard to John, and to himself.