He looked back at the girl, straight into her eyes, and could not read them in the least.  The darkened eyebrows and the glitter in them baffled him.  But he must speak, “Am I?” he said.  “Forgive me, mademoiselle; I was thinking.”

“Of your fiancee—­is it not so?  Ah!  The Capitaine has his fiancee, then?  In England?  Ah, well, the girls in England do not suffer like we girls in France....  They are proud, too, the English misses.  I know, for I have been there, to—­how do you call it?—­Folkestone.  They walk with the head in the air,” and she tilted up her chin so comically that Peter smiled involuntarily.

“No, I do not like them,” went on the girl deliberately.  “They are only half alive, I think.  I almost wish the Boche had been in your land....  They are cold, la!  And not so very nice to kiss, eh?”

“They’re not all like that,” said Pennell.

“Ah, non?  But you like the girls of France the best, mon ami; is it not so?” She leaned across towards him significantly.

Pennell laughed. “Now, yes, perhaps,” he said deliberately; “but after the war ...” and he shrugged his shoulders, like a Frenchman.

A shade passed over the girl’s face, and she got up.  “It is so,” she said lightly.  “Monsieur speaks very true—­oh, very true!  The girls of France now—­they are gay, they are alive, they smile, and it is war, and you men want these things.  But after—­oh, I know you English—­you’ll go home and be—­how do you say?—­’respectable,’ and marry an English miss, and have—­oh! many, many bebes, and wear the top-hat, and go to church.  There is no country like England....”  She made a little gesture.  “What do you believe, you English?  In le bon Dieu?  Non.  In love?  Ah, non!  In what, then?  Je ne sais!” She laughed again.  “What ’ave I said?  Forgive me, monsieur, and you also, Monsieur le Capitaine.  But I do see a friend of mine.  See, I go!  Bon soir.”

She looked deliberately at Peter a moment, then smiled comprehensively and left them.  Peter saw that Alex had gone already; he asked no questions, but looked at Pennell inquiringly.

“I think so, padre; I’ve had enough of it to-night.  Let’s clear.  We can get back in time for mess.”

They went out into the darkening streets, crossed an open square, and turned down a busy road to the docks.  They walked quickly, but Peter seemed to himself conscious of everyone that passed.  He scanned faces, as if to read a riddle in them.  There were men who lounged by, gay, reckless, out for fun plainly, but without any other sinister thought, apparently.  There were Tommies who saluted and trudged on heavily.  There were a couple of Yorkshire boys who did not notice them, flushed, animal, making determinedly for a destination down the street.  There was one man at least who passed walking alone, with a tense, greedy, hard face, and Peter all but shuddered.

The lit shops gave way to a railed space, dark by contrast, and a tall building of old blackened stone, here and there chipped white, loomed up.  Moved by an impulse, Peter paused, “Let’s see if it’s open, Pennell,” he said.  “Do you mind?  I won’t be a second.”