"There's no one else to do it for them," the woman rejoined in the same toneless, listless voice.
"Rather a futile task," he rejoined drily. "What is a hole more or less in a tunic? How many of these fellows will come back from their raid to-morrow do you suppose? Most of these carefully mended tunics will supplement the meagre wardrobes of our friend Fritz over the way, I'm thinking."
"Perhaps," the woman assented with a weary sigh.
"How many of them are going to-morrow?" he asked.
"I don't know. All the men in this house are going."
"And how many will come back do you think?"
The woman shuddered and pressed her thin, colourless lips more tightly together. The Yank gave a harsh laugh and shrugged his lean shoulders.
"These English flying men are very daring," he said lightly; "even Fritz will admit that much. They'll take the maddest risks! I don't think that you will see many of these tunics back here at close of day to-morrow."
The woman, however, remained obstinately silent. Whilst Lucien threw himself into a broken-down armchair that groaned under his weight, she rose and gathered up the pile of tunics.
"What are you doing with the things?" he asked querulously. "Can't you sit still for once and talk to me?"
He stretched out a long, muscular arm, succeeded in grabbing her dress, and drew her with sudden violence towards him. She tried to resist and to clutch the tunics tightly against her breast, but they fell out of her arms in a heap on the floor. She would have stooped to pick them up, but in a moment Lucien had her by the shoulders, forcing her to turn and to look at him.
"You are kinder to those fellows," he reiterated with his harsh laugh, "than you are to me. Leave those things alone, I say, and get me something to drink. What have you got in the house?"
But Alice for once was obstinate. As a rule even an unspoken wish from Lucien was a law unto her, but this time she wrenched herself free from his grasp, and getting down on one knee she started picking up the tunics from the floor. Lucien watched her for a moment or two through half-closed lids, with an undefinable expression on his lean, swarthy face, and a strange line, almost of cruelty, around his firm lips. Apparently he was not accustomed to seeing his whims thwarted, and no doubt he was impelled by the very human desire to probe his power upon this fond and foolish woman, for suddenly he jumped up, gave the tunics that were still on the floor a vigorous kick which sent them flying to the farthest corner of the room, and roughly grabbed the others which Alice was hugging to her breast.