both cheeks. The muleteer blushed and his comrade fidgeted.
Only the girl remained unembarrassed.

Half laughing, half crying, terribly excited, and very lovely to look
upon, she caught both muleteers by their sleeves and poured out a torrent
of questions. With the airman's aid she extracted what information they
had to offer; and they went their way, flustered, still blushing, clasping
bread and bottles to their agitated breasts.

The airman looked her keenly in the eyes as she came back from the door,
still intensely excited, adorably transfigured. She opened her lips to
speak--the happy exclamation on her lips, already half uttered, died
there.

"Well?" inquired the airman quietly.

Dumb, still breathing rapidly, she returned his gaze in silence.

"Now that your friend Jack is going to live--what next?" asked the airman
pleasantly.

For a full minute she continued to stare at him without a word.

"No need to avenge him now," added the airman, watching her.

"No." She turned, gazed vaguely into space. After a moment she said, as
though to herself: "But his country's honour--and mine? That reckoning
still remains! Is it not true?"

The airman said, with a trace of pity in his voice, for the girl seemed
very young:

"You need not go with me to Nivelle just because you promised."

"Oh," she said simply, "I must go, of course--it being a question of our
country's honour."

"I do not ask it. Nor would Jack, your friend. Nor would your own country
ask it of you, Maryette Courtray."

She replied serenely:

"But _I_ ask it--of _myself_. Do you understand, monsieur?"

"Perfectly." He glanced mechanically at his useless wrist watch, then
inquired the time. She went to her room, returned, wearing a little jacket
and carrying a pair of big, wooden gloves.

"It is after eleven o'clock," she said. "I brought my jacket because it is
cold in all belfries. It will be cold in Nivelle, up there in the tower
under Clovis."

"You really mean to go with me?"

She did not even trouble to reply to the question. So he picked up his
packet and his sack of bombs, and they went out, side by side, under the
tunnelled wall.

Infantry from Nivelle trenches were still plodding along the dark street
under the trees; dull gleams came from their helmets and bayonets in the
obscure light of the stars.

The girl stood watching them for a few moments, then her hand sought the
airman's arm:

"If there is to be a battle in the st