“Pardon!” he said.  “Are you the Duchess of Sutherland?”

I regretted that I was not the Duchess of Sutherland.

“You came just now in a large car?”

“I did.”

“You intend to stay here for some time?”

“I have not decided.”

“Where did you come from?”

“I think,” I said after a rather stunned pause, “that I shall not tell you.”

“Madame is very cautious!”

I felt convinced that he spoke with the authority of the army, or of the town gendarmerie, behind him.  But I was irritated.  Besides, I had been cautioned so much about telling where I had been, except in general terms, that I was even afraid to talk in my sleep.

“I think,” I said, “that it does not really matter where I came from, where I am going, or what I am doing here.”

I expected to see him throw back his cape and exhibit a sheriff’s badge, or whatever its French equivalent.  But he only smiled.

“In that case,” he said cheerfully, “I shall wish you a good morning.”

“Good-bye,” I said coldly.  And he took himself off.

I have never solved the mystery of that encounter.  Was he merely curious?  Or scraping acquaintance with the only woman he had seen in months?  Or was he as imposing a person as he looked, and did he go away for a warrant or whatever was necessary, and return to find me safe in the lap of the British Army?

The canary birds sang, and a porter with a leather apron, having overcome a national inability to light a fire in the middle of the day, came to take me to my room.  There was an odour of stewing onions in the air, and soapsuds, and a dog sniffed at me and barked because I addressed him in English.

And then General Huguet came, friendly and smiling, and speaking English.  And all was well.

Afterward I learned how that same diplomacy which made me comfortable and at home with him at once has made smooth the relations between the English and French Armies.  It was Chesterfield, wasn’t it, who spoke of "Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re"? That is General Huguet.  A tall man, dark, keen and of most soldierly bearing; beside the genial downrightness of the British officers he was urbane, suave, but full of decision.  His post requires diplomacy but not concession.

Sir John French, he regretted to say, was at the front and would not return until late in the evening.  But Colonel Fitzgerald hoped that I would come to luncheon at headquarters, so that we might talk over what was best to be done.  He would, if the arrangement suited me, return at one o’clock for me.