Late that fall Eveline came home one evening tramping through the mud and the foggy dusk to find that Eleanor had a French Solider to tea. She was glad to see him, because she was always complaining that she wasn't getting to know any French people, nothing but professional relievers and Red Cross women who were just too tiresome; but it was some moments before she realised it was Maurice Millet. She wondered how she could have fallen for him even when she was a kid, he looked so middleaged and pasty and oldmaidish in his stained blue uniform. His large eyes with their girlish long lashes had heavy violet rings under them. Eleanor evidently thought he was wonderful still, and drank up his talk about l'elan supreme du sacrifice and l'harmonie mysterieuse de la mort. He was a stretcherbearer in a base hospital at Nancy, had become very religious and had almost forgotten his English. When they asked him about his painting, he shrugged his shoulders and wouldn't answer. At supper he ate very little and drank only water. He stayed till late in the evening telling them about miraculous conversions of unbelievers, extreme unction on the firing line, a vision of the young Christ he'd seen walking among the wounded in a dressingstation during a gasattack. Apres la guerre he was going into a monastery. Trappist, perhaps. After he left, Eleanor said it had been the most inspiring evening she'd ever had in her life; Eveline didn't argue with her.
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