was equal suffering, the same cruelty, perhaps the same temptation to despair."
Brand repented, I think, of having led the conversation into such abysmal gloom. He switched off to more cheerful things and gave some elaborate sketches of soldiers he knew, to which Eileen played up with anecdotes of rare comedy about the nuns—the fat nun who under the rigour of war rations became as slim as a willow and was vain of her new grace; the little French nun who had no fear of German officers and dared their fury by prophecies of defeat—but was terrified of a mouse in the refectory; the Reverend Mother, who borrowed a safety-razor from an English Tommy—he had hidden it in his shirt—to shave her upper lip, lest the Germans should think her a French poilu in disguise.
More interesting to me than anything that was said were the things unspoken by Eileen and Brand. In spite of the girl's easy way of laughter, her quick wit, her avoidance, if possible, of any reference to her own suffering, I seemed to see in her eyes and in her face the strain of a long ordeal, some frightful adventure of life in which she had taken great hazards—the people had told me she had risked her life, often—and a woman's courage which had been tested by that experience and had not failed, though perhaps at breaking-point in the worst hours. I supposed her age was twenty-six or so (I guessed it right this side of a year), but there was already a streak of grey in her dark hair, and her eyes, so smiling as a rule, looked as if they had often wept. I think the presence of Brand was a great pleasure to her—bringing to Lille a link with her childhood—and I saw that she was studying the personality of this newly-found friend of hers, and the strong character of his face, not unscathed by the touch of war, with curious, penetrating interest. I felt in the way, and left them
