"Tell him absolutely nothing," she whispered to me. I obeyed, but he
never took his eyes from her. She was tugging at the strap of her
trunk in apparently wild eagerness to get it open. She frowned and
panted a little to show how hard it was, and he bounded forward to
help her. Then she smiled at him, and he blinked his eyes and tucked
the strap in and chalked her trunk, with a shrug. He hadn't opened it.
She kept her eye on him and pointed to my trunk, and he chalked that.
Then seven pieces of hand luggage, and he chalked them all. Then she
smiled on him again, and I thanked him, but he didn't seem to hear me,
and she nodded her thanks and pulled me down a long stone corridor to
the dining-room where we could get some coffee.
At the door I looked back. The customs officer was still looking after
my companion, but she never even saw it.
The dining-room was full of smoke, but the coffee and my first taste
of zwieback were delicious. Then we went out through a narrow doorway
to the train, where we were jostled by Frenchmen with their habitual
"_Pardon!_" (which partially reconciles you to being walked on), and
knocked into by monstrous Germans, who sent us spinning without so
much as a look of apology, and both of whom puffed their tobacco smoke
directly in our faces.
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