satisfied, she smiled slightly and replied: .

"But certainly, monsieur. Come to the mill and my father will get
you some. He is the manager."

She spoke even more haltingly than he had, and with no semblance of
a French accent - the French rather of an English school. He stared
at her.

"But you're English!" he cried in surprise.

She laughed lightly.

"Of course I'm English," she answered. "Why shouldn't I be English?
But I don't think you're very polite about it, you know."

He apologized in some confusion. It was the unexpectedness of
meeting a fellow-countryman in this out of the way wood . . . It
was . . . He did not mean. . . .

"You want to say my French is not really so bad after all?" she
said relentlessly, and then: "I can tell you it's a lot better
than when we came here."

"Then you are a newcomer?"

"We're not out very long. It's rather a change from London, as you
may imagine. But it's not such a bad country as it looks. At first
I thought it would be dreadful, but I have grown to like it."