had been fought in such and such a suburb.  But then she said it was absurd to be afraid when you were with a couple of million people, all in the same plight as yourself.  She grew reconciled to everything.  She even began to like her tiny bedroom, partly because it was so easy to keep warm (the question of artificial heat was growing acute in Paris), and partly because it ensured her privacy.  Down in the flat, whatever was done or said in one room could be more or less heard in all the others, owing to the prevalence of doors.

Her existence, in the first half of November, had become regular with a monotony almost absolute.  Only the number of meals served to her boarders varied slightly from day to day.  All these repasts, save now and then one in the evening, were carried into the bedrooms by the charwoman.  Sophia did not allow herself to be seen much, except in the afternoons.  Though Sophia continued to increase her prices, and was now selling her stores at an immense profit, she never approached the prices current outside.  She was very indignant against the exploitation of Paris by its shopkeepers, who had vast supplies of provender, and were hoarding for the rise.  But the force of their example was too great for her to ignore it entirely; she contented herself with about half their gains.  Only to M. Niepce did she charge more than to the others, because he was a shopkeeper.  The four men appreciated their paradise.  In them developed that agreeable feeling of security which solitary males find only under the roof of a landlady who is at once prompt, honest, and a votary of cleanliness.  Sophia hung a slate near the frontdoor, and on this slate they wrote their requests for meals, for being called, for laundry-work, etc.  Sophia never made a mistake, and never forgot.  The perfection of the domestic machine amazed these men, who had been accustomed to something quite different, and who every day heard harrowing stories of discomfort and swindling from their acquaintances.  They even admired Sophia for making them pay, if not too high, still high.  They thought it wonderful that she should tell them the price of all things in advance, and even show them how to avoid expense, particularly in the matter of warmth.  She arranged rugs for each of them, so that they could sit comfortably in their rooms with nothing but a small charcoal heater for the hands.  Quite naturally they came to regard her as the paragon and miracle of women.  They endowed her with every fine quality.  According to them there had never been such a woman in the history of mankind; there could not have been!  She became legendary among their friends:  a young and elegant creature, surpassingly beautiful, proud, queenly, unapproachable, scarcely visible, a marvellous manager, a fine cook and artificer of strange English dishes, utterly reliable, utterly exact and with habits of order ...!  They adored the slight English accent which gave a touch of the exotic to her very correct and freely idiomatic French.  In short, Sophia was perfect for them, an impossible woman.  Whatever she did was right.