Tea was an unusual success for France.  It was real tea, but then there was reason for that, for Julie had insisted on going into the big kitchen, to madame’s amusement and monsieur’s open admiration, and making it herself.  But the chocolate cakes, the white bread and proper butter, and the cream, were a miracle.  Peter wondered if you could get such things in England now, and Julie gaily told him that the French made laws only to break them, with several instances thereof.  She declared that if a food-ration officer existed in Caudebec he must be in love with the landlady’s daughter and that she only wished she could get to know such an official in Havre.  The daughter in question waited on them, and Julie and she chummed up immensely.  Finally she was despatched to produce a collection of Army badges and buttons—­scalps Julie called them.  When they came they turned them over.  All ranks were represented, or nearly so, and most regiments that either could remember.  There were Canadian, Australian, and South African badges, and at last Julie declared that only one was wanting.

“What will you give for this officer’s badge?” she demanded, seizing hold of one of Peter’s Maltese crosses.

The girl looked at it curiously.  “What is it?” she said.

“It’s the badge of the Sacred Legion,” said Julie gravely.  “You know Malta?  Well, that’s part of the British Empire, of course, and the English used to have a regiment there to defend it from the Turks.  It was a great honour to join, and so it was called the Sacred Legion.  This officer is a Captain in it.”

“Shut up Julie,” said Peter, sotto voce.

But nothing would stop her.  “Come now,” she said.  “What will you give?  You’ll give her one for a kiss, won’t you, Solomon?”

The girl laughed and blushed “Not before mademoiselle,” she said, looking at Peter.

“Oh, I’m off,” cried Julie, “I’ll spare you one, but only one, remember.” and she deliberately got up and left them.

Mademoiselle was “tres jolie,” said the girl, collecting her badges.  Peter detached a cross and gave it her, and she demurely put up her mouth.  He kissed her lightly, and walked leisurely out to settle the bill and call the car.  He had entirety forgotten his depression, and the world seemed good to him.  He hummed a little song by the water’s edge as he waited, and thought over the day.  He could never remember having had such a one in his life.  Then he recollected that one badge was gone, and he abstracted the other.  Without his badges he would not be known as a chaplain.

When Julie appeared, she made no remark, as he had half-expected.  They got in, and started off back in the cooling evening.  Near Tancarville they stopped the car to have the hood put up, and strolled up into the grounds of the old castle while they waited.

“Extraordinary it must have been to have lived in a place like this,” said Peter.