clipped them with little metal clips.

"Are you for us?" asked a _sous-lieutenant_, looking first up and down
the empty street and then at the car. He had blue eyes and a long, sad
moustache that swept down the lower half of his face and even below his
chin, making him look older than he should.

"I am for a Russian colonel," she said, liking his mild face.

"That's right. Yes, a Russian colonel. Colonel Dellahousse. But can you
manage by yourself? Can you really? I will tell him...."

He disappeared up the steps and through the swing door of the hotel. A
moment later he was out again.

"He will come to you himself, he will see you. But we want to go to
Verdun! Could you drive so far? You could? Yes, yes, perhaps. Yet here
he comes...."

In dark civilian clothes the Russian came down the hotel steps. He was
tall, serious, upright, rich. His face beneath his wide, black hat was
grave and well cared for. The sombre glitter of his eye was grave, his
small dark beard shone in the well-controlled prime of its growth. From
the narrow line of white collar to the narrower thread of French
watchchain--from the lean, long feet to the lean, white hands she took
him in, and braced herself, adjusted herself, to meet his stately
gravity. If there was something of the Mephistopheles in fancy dress
about him, it was corrected by his considerate expression.

"Have you had breakfast?" he began, speaking French with a softly nasal