The two men put their heads together over these documents—­ examined the signatures and the seals with great gravity—­with evident regret to find that I was quite en regle.

Finally they permitted me to put the documents all back in the case in which I carry them.

I thought the scene was over.  Not at all.  They waited until I shut the case, and replaced it in my bag—­and then: 

“You live alone?” one asked.

I owned that I did.

“But why?”

“Well,” I replied, “because I have no family here.”

“You have no domestic?”

I explained that I had a femme de menage.

“Where is she?”

I said that at that moment she was probably at Couilly, but that ordinarily when she was not here, she was at her own home.

“Where is that?” was the next question.

So I took them out on to the terrace again, and showed them Amelie’s house.

They stared solemnly at it, as if they had never seen it before, and then one of them turned on me quickly, as if to startle me.  “Vous etes une femme de lettres?”

“It is so written down in my papers,” I replied.

“Journaliste?”

I denied my old calling without the quiver of an eyelash.  I hadn’t a scruple.  Besides, my old profession many a time failed me, and it might have been dangerous to have been known as even an ex-journalist today within the zone of military operations.

Upon that followed a series of the most intimate questions anyone ever dared put to me,—­my income, my resources, my expectations, my plans, etc.—­and all sorts of questions I too rarely put to myself even, and never answer to myself.  Practically the only question they did not ask was if I ever intended to marry.  I was tempted to volunteer that information, but, as neither man had the smallest sense of humor, I decided it was wiser to let well enough alone.

It was only when they were stumped for another single question that they decided to go.  They saluted me politely this time, a tribute I imagine to my having kept my temper under great provocation to lose it, went out of the gate, stood whispering together a few minutes, and gazing back at the house, as if afraid they would forget it, looked up at the plaque on the gate-post, made a note, mounted their wheels, and sprinted down the hill, still in earnest conversation.

I wondered what they were saying to one another.  Whatever it was, I got an order early the next morning to present myself at the gendarmerie at Esbly before eleven o’clock.

Pere was angry.  He seemed to feel, that, for some reason, I was under suspicion, and that it was a man’s business to defend me.  So, when Ninette brought my perambulator to the gate, there was Pere, in his veston and casquette, determined to go with me and see me through.