Harold led the way without ceremony into a parlour that opened off a verandah, and, finding it empty, opened a door beyond.  “Marie!  Marie!” he called.

“Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine, I come,” came a girl’s voice, and Marie entered.  Peter noticed how rapidly she took them all in, and how cold were the eyes that nevertheless sparkled and greeted Harold and Mackay with seeming gaiety.  She was short and dark and not particularly good-looking, but she had all the vivacity and charm of the French.

“Oh, monsieur, where have you been for so long?  I thought you had forgotten La Croix de Guerre altogether.  It’s the two weeks—­no, three—­since you come here.  The gentlemen will have dejeuner?  And perhaps a little aperitif before?”

“Bon jour, Marie,” began the Captain in clumsy French, and then abandoned the attempt.  “I could not come, Marie, you know.  C’est la guerre.  Much work each day.”

“Ah, non, monsieur cannot cheat me.  He had found another cafe and another girl....  Non, non, monsieur, it is not correct;” and the girl drew herself up with a curiously changed air as Harold clumsily reached out towards her, protesting.  “And you have a cure here—­how do you say, a chapelain?” and Marie beamed on Peter.

The two officers looked at him and laughed.  “What can I bring you, Monsieur le Capitaine le Cure?” demanded the girl.  “Vermuth?  Cognac?”

Mackay slipped from the edge of the table on which he had been sitting and advanced towards her, speaking fluent French, with a curious suggestion of a Scotch accent that never appeared in his English.  Peter watched with a smile on his face and a curious medley of feelings, while the Lieutenant explained, that they could not stop to lunch, that they would take three mixed vermuth, and that he would come and help her get them.  They went out together, Marie protesting, and Harold, lighting a cigarette and offering one to Peter, said with a laugh:  “He’s the boy, is Mackay.  Wish I could sling the lingo like him.  It’s a great country, padre.”

In a minute or two the pair of them came back, Marie was wearing the rose at the point of the little decollete of her black dress, and was all over smiles.  She carried a tray with glasses and a bottle.  Mackay carried the other.  With a great show, he helped her pour out, and chatted away in French while they drank.

Harold and Peter talked together, but the latter caught scraps of the others’ conversation.  Mackay wanted to know, apparently, when she would be next in town, and was urging a date on her.  Peter caught “Rue Jeanne d’Arc,” but little more, and Harold was insistent on a move in a few minutes.  They skirmished at the door saying “Good-bye,” but it was with an increased feeling of the warmth and jollity of his new life that Peter once more boarded the car.  This time Mackay got in front and Harold joined Graham behind.  As they sped off, Peter said: