dozing in her chair in the salon, as I passed through the hall, with her
gnarled hands extended on her knees in just that attitude of quiet
waiting which one associates with the well-known engraving in which
Death is figured as the coming of a friend. But when she was on her feet
she moved about with a kind of aimless activity, opening drawers and
shutting them and reopening them and speaking to herself the while,
until Jeanne, catching my puzzled expression, would whisper loudly in
my ear with a tolerant smile, "Elle est très VIEILLE." Jeanne had
acquired a habit of raising her voice, owing to Madame's deafness, which
resulted in her whispers partaking of the phonetic quality of those
stage asides which, by a curious convention, while audible at the very
back of the dress circle, are quite inaudible to the other characters on
the stage. Whether Madame ever overheard these auricular confidences I
know not. If she did, I doubt if she regarded them, for she was under
the illusion, common to very old people who live in the society of a
younger generation and were mature adults when their companions were
merely adolescent, that Jeanne, who had entered her service as a child,
had never grown up. If Madame seemed "très vieille" to Jeanne, it was
indisputable that Jeanne continued "très jeune" to Madame. She was,
indeed, firmly convinced that she was looking after Jeanne, whereas in
truth it was Jeanne who looked after her. For Jeanne was at least
thirty-five, with a husband at the war, in virtue of whom she enjoyed a
separation allowance of one franc a day, and a boy for whom she received
ten sous. Her husband, a _pompier_, got nothing. It never occurred to
her to regard this provision as inadequate. And she was as capable as
she was contented, and sang at her work.

It was often difficult to believe that this quiet backwater was within
an hour or two of the trenches. G.H.Q. was indeed situated well back
behind "the Front," which, however precise the maps in the newspapers