every instant!"

It was Dierdre O'Farrell who spoke, and we glared into each other's eyes
like two Kilkenny cats--or a surprised Kilkenny cat and a spitfire
Kilkenny kitten.

A moment before, I had been longing to strike at her. Now it was she who
struck at me; and it was too much, that it should be in defence of my
own brother! The primitive fishwife within me rose to the surface. "Mind
your own business!" I rudely flung at her: and slipping my arm under
Brian's, in a voice of curdled cream begged him to come with me indoors.

The others followed, and about three seconds later a bomb fell in front
of the hotel. It was a "dud," and did not explode, but it made a hole in
the pavement and sent a jet of splintered stone into the air.

Perhaps the girl had saved us from death, or at least from disfiguring
wounds, but I was in no mood to thank her for that. I was _glad_ I had
been a fishwife, and I thought Brian lacked his usual discernment in
attributing hidden qualities to such a person as Dierdre O'Farrell.

"Something's bound to break, if we don't part soon!" I told myself.

CHAPTER XII

Nancy is one of "Jim's towns," as Mother and Father Beckett say. When,
with Brian's help, they began mapping out their route, they decided to
"give something worth while" to the place, and to all the ruined region
round about, when they had learned what form would be best for their
donation to take. Some friend in Paris gave them a letter to the Prefet,
and we had not been in Nancy an hour when he and his wife called.

I'd never met a real, live prefet. The word sounded stiff and official.
When Mother Beckett tremulously asked me to act as interpreter, I dimly
expected to meet two polite automata, as little human as creatures of
flesh and blood can be. Instead, I saw a perfectly delightful pair of
Parisians, with the warm, kind manner one thinks of as southern. They
were frankly pleased that a millionaire's purse promised to open for
Nancy. Monsieur le Prefet offered himself to the Becketts as guide on a
sightseeing expedition next day, and Madame, the Prefet's wife, proposed
to exhibit her two thousand children, old and young, refugees housed in
what once had been barracks. "The Germans pretend to believe they are
barracks still, full of soldiers, as an excuse for bombs," she said.
"But you shall see! And if you wish--if you have time--we will take you
to see also what the Boches have done to some of our other towns--ah,