In France there are conventions, Monsieur Howard, you understand.'
'I know,' he said.
'John never worried much about those.
Did he get you a nice bathing-dress?'
She smiled: 'It was very beautiful,' she said.
'An American one, very chic, in silver and green.
It was so pretty that it was a pleasure to be seen in it.'
'Well,' he said.
'You couldn't have worn that in a museum.'
She stared at him, nonplussed.
'But no...' And then she laughed.
'It would be quite ridiculous, that.'
She smiled again at the thought.
'Monsieur, you say absurd things, just the same as John.'
It was four o'clock when the train pulled into the little station of Landerneau.
They tumbled out of the carriage with relief, Nicole lifting each child down on to the platform except Ronnie, who insisted on getting down himself.
They fetched the pram from the baggage-car and put the remainder of their lunch in it, with the kitten.
There was no guard at the guichet and they passed through into the town.
Landerneau is a little town of six or seven thousand people, a sleepy little place on a tidal river running to the Rade de Brest.
It is built of grey stone, set in a rolling country dotted round with little woods; it reminded Howard of the Yorkshire wolds.
The air, which had been hot and stuffy in the railway carriage, now seemed fresh and sweet, with a faint savour suggesting that the sea was not so very far away.
The town was sparsely held by Germans.
Their lorries were parked in the square beneath the plane-trees by the river, but there were few of them to be seen.
Those that were in evidence seemed ill at ease, anxious to placate the curiosity of a population which they knew to be pro-English.
Their behaviour was most studiously correct.
The few soldiers in the streets were grey faced and tired looking, wandering round in twos and threes and staring listlessly at the strange sights.
One thing was very noticeable; they never seemed to laugh..
Unchallenged, Howard and Nicole walkedxhrough the town and out into the country beyond, on the road that led towards the south.
They went slowly for the sake of the children; the old man was accustomed now to the slow pace that they could manage.
The road was empty and they straggled all over it.
It led up on to the open wold.
Rose and Willem were allowed to take their shoes off and go barefoot, rather to the disapproval of Nicole.
'I do not think that that is in the part,' she said.
'The class which we represent would not do that.'
The old man said: 'There's nobody to see.'
She agreed that it did not matter much, and they went sauntering on, Willem pushing the pram with Pierre.
Ahead of them three aircraft crossed the sky in steady, purposeful flight towards the west, flying at about two thousand feet.
The sight woke memories in Rose.
'M'sieur,' she cried. 'Three aeroplanes - look!
Quick, let us get ulto the ditch!'
He calmed her. 'Never mind them,' he said equably.
'They aren't going to hurt us.'
She was only half-reassured. 'But they dropped bombs before and fired their guns!'
He said: 'These are different aeroplanes.
These are good aeroplanes.
They won't hurt us.'
Pierre said, suddenly and devastatingly, in his little piping voice:
'Can you tell good aeroplanes from bad aeroplanes, M'sieur Howard?'
With a sick heart the old man thought again of the shambles on the Montargis road.
'Why, yes,' he said gently.