In two languages they were examining a young Englishwoman who was pale, ill, and obviously frightened.
"What is your purpose in going to London?" asked the French official.
To the French official it seemed a good answer. As much as to say: "Take the witness," he bowed to his English colleagues.
"If your children are in London," demanded one, "what are you doing in France?"
"I have been at Amiens, nursing my husband."
"Amiens is inside our lines. Who gave you permission to remain inside our lines?"
The officer scowled at the letter. Out of the corner of his mouth he said: "Permit from the 'W. O.' Husband, Captain in the Berkshires. Wounded at La Bassée."
He was already scratching his visé upon her passport. As he wrote, he said, cordially: "I hope your husband is all right again." The woman did not reply. So long was she in answering that they looked up at her. She was chilled with waiting in the cold rain. She had been on a strain, and her lips began to tremble. To hide that fact, and with no intention of being dramatic, she raised her hand, and over her face dropped a black veil.
"You should have told us at once, madam," he said. He jerked his head at the detective and toward the door, and the detective picked up her valise, and asked her please to follow. At the door she looked back, and the row of officials, like one man, bent forward.
One of them was engaged in studying my passport. It had been viséed by the representatives of all the civilized powers, and except the Germans and their fellow gunmen, most of the uncivilized. The officer was fascinated with it. Like a jig-saw puzzle, it appealed to him. He turned it wrong side up and sideways, and took so long about it that the others, hoping there was something wrong, in anticipation scowled at me. But the officer disappointed them.
"Very interestin'," he said. "You ought to frame it."
Now that I was free to leave the detention camp I perversely felt a desire to remain. Now that I was free, the sight of all the other passengers kicking each other's heels and being herded by Tommies gave me a feeling of infinite pleasure. I tried to express this by forcing money on the detective, but he absolutely refused it. So, instead, I offered to introduce him to a King's messenger. We went in search of the King's messenger. I was secretly alarmed lest he had lost himself. Since we had left the Balkans together he had lost nearly everything else. He had set out as fully equipped as the white knight, or a "temp. sec. lieutenant." But his route was marked with lost trunks, travelling-bags, hat-boxes, umbrellas, and receipts for reservations on steamships, railroad-trains, in wagon-lits, and dining-cars.