The
mother was happy with her children, and the little maid had dried her
tears. Then one day the young husband went away with the little maid
and all the money, leaving his wife in the estaminet with a big debt
to pay and a broken heart.
"That is what the war has done to me," she said again, picking up the
photograph of the girl in the evening frock with a little curl on each
cheek.
"C'est triste, Madame!"
"Oui, c'est triste, Monsieur!"
But it was not war that had caused her tragedy, except that it had
unloosened the roots of her family life. Guy de Maupassant would have
given just such an ending to his story.
IX
Some of our officers stationed in Amiens, and billeted in private
houses, became very friendly with the families who received them.
Young girls of good middle class, the daughters of shopkeepers and
schoolmasters, and merchants in a good way of business, found it
delightful to wait on handsome young Englishmen, to teach them French,
to take walks with them, and to arrange musical evenings with other
girl friends who brought their young officers and sang little old
French songs with them or English songs in the prettiest French
accent.
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