The Croix de Guerre stood back from the road in a long garden just where a forest bridle-path wound down through a tiny village to the main road. Their chauffeur backed the car all but out of sight into this path after they climbed out, and the three of them made for a sidedoor in a high wall. Harold opened it and walked in. The pretty trim little garden had a few flowers in bloom, so sheltered was it, and Mackay picked a red rosebud as they walked up the path.
Harold led the way without ceremony into a parlour that opened off a verandah, and, finding it empty, opened a door beyond. "Marie! Marie!" he called.
"Ah, Monsieur le Capitaine, I come," came a girl's voice, and Marie entered. Peter noticed how rapidly she took them all in, and how cold were the eyes that nevertheless sparkled and greeted Harold and Mackay with seeming gaiety. She was short and dark and not particularly good-looking, but she had all the vivacity and charm of the French.
"Oh, monsieur, where have you been for so long? I thought you had forgotten La Croix de Guerre altogether. It's the two weeks--no, _three_--since you come here. The gentlemen will have déjeuner? And perhaps a little aperitif before?"
"Bon jour, Marie," began the Captain in clumsy French, and then abandoned the attempt. "I could not come, Marie, you know. C'est la guerre. Much work each day."
"Ah, non, monsieur cannot cheat me. He had found another cafe and another girl.... Non, non, monsieur, it is not correct;" and the girl drew herself up with a curiously changed air as Harold clumsily reached out towards her, protesting. "And you have a curé here--how do you say, a chapelain?" and Marie beamed on Peter.
The two officers looked at him and laughed. "What can I bring you, Monsieur le Capitaine le Curé?" demanded the girl. "Vermuth? Cognac?"
Mackay slipped from the edge of the table on which he had been sitting and advanced towards her, speaking fluent French, with a curious suggestion of a Scotch accent that never appeared in his English. Peter watched with a smile on his face and a curious medley of feelings, while the Lieutenant explained, that they could not stop to lunch, that they would take three mixed vermuth, and that he would come and help her get them. They went out together, Marie protesting, and Harold, lighting a cigarette and offering one to Peter, said with a laugh: "He's the boy, is Mackay. Wish I could sling the lingo like him. It's a great country, padre."