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vehicle—a noisy old truck that wheezed and shook and, to her surprise, turned into the station platform at the last minute and drew to a stop beside her. The cab door swung open and Harold hopped out.
    In the driver’s seat was a middle-aged man who looked like a farmer and had beautiful blue eyes.
    â€œI was beginning to worry about you,” she said.
    â€œThis is M. Fleury. What a time I’ve had!”
    Sitting in the back of the truck, on the two largest suitcases, they were driven through the village and out into open country. The grain was turning yellow in the fields, and they saw poppies growing along the roadside. The dirt road was rough and full of potholes, and they had to keep turning their faces away to keep from breathing in the dust.
    â€œThis is too far to walk even without the luggage,” he said.
    â€œI’ll have to wash my hair,” she said. “But it’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
    Before long they had a glimpse of the château, across the fields. The trees hid it from view. Then they turned in, between two gate posts, and drove up a long curving cinder drive, and saw the house again, much closer now. It was of white limestone, with tall French windows and a steep slate roof. Across the front was a raised terrace with a low box hedge and a stone balustrade. To the right of the house there was an enormous Lebanon cedar, whose branches fell like dark-green waves, and a high brick wall with ornamental iron gates. To their eyes, accustomed to foundation planting and wisteria or rose trellises, the façade looked a little bare and new. The truck went through the gate and into a courtyard and stopped. For a moment they were aware of how much racket the engine made, and then M. Fleury turned the ignition off to save gasoline, and after that it was the silence they heard. They sat waiting with their eyes on the house and finally a door burst open and a small, thin, black-haired woman came hurrying out. She stopped a few feet from the truck and nodded bleakly to M. Fleury, who touched his beret but said nothing. We must look very strange sitting in the back of the truck with our luggage crammed in around us, Harold thought. But on the other hand, it was rather strange that there was no one at the station to meet them.
    They had no way of knowing who the woman was, but she must know who they were, and so they waited uneasily for her to speak. Her eyes moved from them to the fresh Cunard Line stickers on their suitcases. “Yes?” she said coldly in English. “You wanted something?”
    â€œMme Viénot?” Barbara asked timidly.
    The woman clapped her hand to her forehead. “Mme Rhodes! Do forgive me! I thought— Oh how extraordinary! I thought you were middle-aged!”
    This idea fortunately struck all three of them as comical. Harold jumped down from the truck and then turned and helped Barbara down. Mme Viénot shook hands with them and, still amazed, still amused at her extraordinary mistake, said: “Icannot imagine what you must think of me.… We were just starting to go to the station to meet you. M. Carrère very kindly offered his car. The Bentley would have been more comfortable, perhaps, but you seem to have managed very well by yourselves.” She smiled at the camion.
    â€œWe thought of telephoning,” Barbara said, “but there was no telephone in the station, and at the Café de la Gare they told us—”
    â€œWe can’t use the telephone after eleven o’clock on Sundays,” Mme Viénot interrupted. “The service is cut off. So even if you had tried to reach us by telephone, you couldn’t have.” She was still smiling, but they saw that she was taking them in—their faces, their American clothes, the gray dust they were powdered with as a result of their ride in the open truck.
    â€œThe Stationmaster said we could walk,” Barbara said, “but we had the