We drew up our chairs, for the mutton must not be allowed to get cold.

“It’s quite a party, isn’t it?” said one of the hostesses, and showed us proudly the dish of fruit on the centre of the table, flanked by bonbons and nuts which had just been sent from England.

True, the fruit was a little old and the nuts were few; but they gave the table a most festive look.

Some one had taken off my shoes and they were drying by the fire, stuffed with paper to keep them in shape.  My soaking outer garments had been carried to the lean-to kitchen to hang by the stove, and dry under the care of a soldier servant who helped with the cooking.  I looked at him curiously.  His predecessor had been killed in the room where he stood.

The German batteries were firing, and every now and then from the trenches at the foot of the street came the sharp ping of rifles.  No one paid any attention.  We were warm and sheltered from the wind.  What if the town was being shelled and the Germans were only six hundred feet away?  We were getting dry, and there was mutton for dinner.

It was a very cheerful party—­the two young ladies, and a third who had joined them temporarily, a doctor who was taking influenza and added little to the conversation, the chauffeur attached to the house, who was a count in ordinary times, a Belgian major who had come up from the trenches to have a real meal, and the English officer who had taken me out.

Outside the door stood the major’s Congo servant, a black boy who never leaves him, following with dog-like fidelity into the trenches and sleeping outside his door when the major is in billet.  He had picked him up in the Congo years before during his active service there.

The meal went on.  The frying-pan was passed.  The food was good and the talk was better.  It was indiscriminately rapid French and English.  When it was English I replied.  When it was French I ate.

The hostess presented me with a shrapnel case which had arrived that day on the doorstep.

“If you are collecting trophies,” said the major, “I shall get you a German sentry this evening.  How would you like that?”

There was a reckless twinkle in the major’s eye.  It developed that he had captured several sentries and liked playing the game.

But I did not know the man.  So I said:  “Certainly, it would be most interesting.”

Whereupon he rose.  It took all the combined effort of the dinner party to induce him to sit down and continue his meal.  He was vastly disappointed.  He was a big man with a humorous mouth.  The idea of bringing me a German sentry to take home as a trophy appealed to him.

The meal went on.  No one seemed to consider the circumstances extraordinary.  Now and then I remembered the story of the street fighting a few nights before.  I had an idea that these people would keep on eating and talking English politics quite calmly in the event of a German charge.  I wondered if I could live up to my reputation for courage in such a crisis.