Sister Gabrielle retained her wonderful smile.  Without moving her arms, she slightly raised her two hands, which showed white against the black cloth of her dress.  Those hands seemed to say:  “I should like to very much, but I cannot.”  And at the same time the smile said:  “We ought not to, but it shall be managed nevertheless.”

“Come,” she said; “in any case, we can give you something to eat.”

And she took up the little lamp.  She went first, opened the door at the end of the passage, and we followed her, delighted.  We were dazzled as we came into this new room by the brilliance of the lamps that lit it.  It was the convent kitchen.  How clean and bright everything was!  The copper saucepans shone resplendently.  The black and white pavement looked like an ivory chessboard.  Two Sisters were sitting peeling vegetables which they threw into a bowl of water.  An enormous pot, on the well-polished stove, was humming its inviting monotone.  It was this pot which exhaled the delicious smell that had greeted us when we entered the house.  The whole picture recalled one of Bail’s appetising canvases.  The two Sisters raised their eyes, looked at us and—­yes, they smiled too.  B., feeling eloquent, wanted to make a speech; but Sister Gabrielle hurried us on: 

“Come, come,” she said.  “It is not worth while; they wouldn’t understand you.”

She opened another door, and we went into a small rectangular room.  Whilst our guide hastened to light the lamp hanging above the table, we laid our kits on the window-sill:  our revolvers, shakoes, binocular glasses and map-cases; and how tarnished and dirty the things were, after those three months of war!  We ourselves felt fairly ashamed to be seen in such a state.  Our coats worn and stained, our breeches patched, our huge boots covered with mud, all formed a strange contrast to the room we were in.  It was provided throughout with large cupboards in the walls, the doors of which reached to the ceiling.  These doors were of polished wood, and shone like a mirror.  The floor was like another mirror.  That indefatigable chatterer B. began another speech: 

“Sister, please excuse the costumes of fighting men.  We must look like ruffians, but we are honest folk.  If our faces do not inspire much confidence, it is simply because our stomachs are so empty.  And no one more resembles a vagabond than a poor wretch who is dying with hunger.  You will not know us again after we have had a few words with the pot which gave out such a savoury smell as we passed.”

Sister Gabrielle did not cease to smile.  With wonderful rapidity and skill she opened one of the cupboards, and, from the piles of linen, picked out a checkered red and white tablecloth with which she covered the table.  In a moment she had arranged places for two, opposite each other.

“Sit down,” she said, “and rest.  I will go and fetch you something to eat.”

B. followed her to the door.