We
wandered round the church alone, delighting our eyes with the warm
golden white of the stone, the height of the grooved arches, the flaming
fragments of old glass, when we saw the figure of an old priest come
slowly down the aisle, his arms folded. He looked at us rather dreamily
and passed. Our guide, Monsieur P., followed and spoke to him.
"Monsieur, you are the Abbe Dourlent?"
"I am, sir. What can I do for you?"
Something was said about English ladies, and the Cure courteously turned
back. "Will the ladies come into the Presbytere?" We followed him across
the small cathedral square to the old house in which he lived, and were
shown into a bare dining-room, with a table, some chairs, and a few old
religious engravings on the walls. He offered us chairs and sat
down himself.
"You would like to hear the story of the German occupation?" He thought
a little before beginning, and I was struck with his strong, tired face,
the powerful mouth and jaw, and above them, eyes which seemed to have
lost the power of smiling, though I guessed them to be naturally full of
a pleasant shrewdness, of what the French call _malice_, which is not
the English "malice.
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