At the Hotel de l'Europe, three men waited for her with frowns, loaded
with plaid rugs, mufflers, black bags, and gaping baskets of food, from
which protruded bottles of wine. It was, then, to be one of those days
when they lunched by the wayside in the bitter cold.

She drew up beside them. A huge man with an unclean bearskin coat and
flaccid red cheeks told her she was very late. She listened, apologising,
but intent only on her question.

"And could you tell me--(I'm so dreadfully sorry, but they only told me
very late at the garage)--and would you mind telling me which day you
expect to get back?"

He turned to the others.

"It depends," said a dry, dark man with a look of rebuke, "on our work.
To-morrow night, perhaps. Perhaps the next morning."

"Where shall I drive you?"

"Go out by Thionville. We are going up the Moselle to Treves."

Anxious to dispose of such a mountain of a man, it was suggested that
the Bearskin should climb in beside the driver. Instantly Fanny was
smothered up as he sat down, placing so many packages between himself
and the outer side of the car that he sank heavily against her arm, and
the fur of his coat blew into her mouth.

In discomfort she drove them from the town, brooding over her wheel,
unhappily on and on till Metz had sunk over the edge of the flat