they had gone on a few paces Fanny whispered, hurrying, "A better still
beyond!" At the third shop, the Need, imperative, royal, would wait no
longer, and drove them within.

"How many?" asked the saleswoman at the end of ten minutes.

"Seven _eclairs_ and a cream bun, said Stewart.

"Just nine _eclairs_," said Fanny.

"Seventeen francs," said the woman without moving an eyelash.

This frenzy cooled, their pockets lighter, they walked for pleasure in
the town. The narrow streets streamed with people--French soldiers and
officers, Lorraine women in the costumes of pageantry, and German
children who cried shrilly: "Amerikanerin, Amerikanerin!"

An English major passed them. They recognised his flawless boots before
they realised his nationality. And, following his, the worst boots in
the world--worn by a couple of sauntering Italian officers, gay in olive
and silver uniform. German men in black slouch hats hurried along
the streets.

It had been arranged that they should eat their meals in a room
overlooking the canal, at the foot of the Cathedral--and there at eleven
o'clock they went, to be a little dashed in spirit by the reappearance
of the Bar-le-Duc crockery.

The same yellow dish carried what seemed the same rationed jam; the
square blocks of meat might have been cooked in the Bar cook-hut, and