There is
an inn there--the Hotel du Sauvage--which belongs now to English
history, and Scottish and Irish and Welsh and Australian and Canadian.
It was the last place along the road to Ypres where men who loved life
could get a dinner sitting with their knees below a table-cloth, with
candle-light glinting in glasses, while outside the windows the
flickering fires of death told them how short might be their tarrying
in the good places of the world. This was a good place where the
blinds were pulled down by Madame, who understood. Behind the desk was
Mademoiselle Suzanne, "a dainty rogue in porcelain," with wonderfully
bright eyes and just a little greeting of a smile for any young
officer who looked her way trying to get that greeting, because it was
ever so long since he had seen a pretty face and might be ever so long
again. Sometimes it was a smile met in the mirror against the wall, to
which Suzanne looked to touch her curls and see, like the Lady of
Shalott, the pictures of life that passed.
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