Free V for Vengeance by Dennis Wheatley Page A

supposed to be in pain and stop laughing rather guiltily. He now made no secret of the fact that he adored her, but he made no attempt to kiss her, as Pierre had predicted he would, nor did he make any other advance. She was glad of that, although it struck her as rather strange, since he spoke with the utmost freedom and evident relish of the innumerable affairs he had had with an infinite variety of women in a long life which seemed mainly to have been devoted to fighting and amorous adventures.
    But she soon guessed the reason for the great circumspection which he exercised with regard to herself. He had his own particular code of chivalry. She had nursed him back from the shadow of death to health and strength with unremitting care and patience. Therefore he placed her in a class apart. Nothing would have induced him to embarrass her for a single second by attempting to make love to her while he was still a guest under her roof, in spite of his at times almost overpowering desire to do so. Outwardly, at least, he appeared perfectly content simply to be with her, and often they would sit up far into the night while her entertained her with a seemingly endless flow of amusing reminiscences.
    Pierre’s assistance in moving the invalid was now no longer necessary, but he continued to look in every day and often joined them at their simple meals, bringing his own rations. At first Madeleine had feared that his jealousy of Stefan would cause trouble between them, but the Russian was such a charming person that, almost despite himself, the young artist was won over to a cordial liking for him. Pierre too had now become as bitterly anti-Nazi as the others, since the presence of the Germans in Paris was affecting him personally.
    During the month of July he had worked hard on two pictures, and when they were finished had taken them along to Emile Martin’s
Galerie
in the Rue Bonaparte, where his work was usually displayed for sale. A week later Monsieur Martin had rung him up to tell him apologetically that hehad been compelled to part with them to a German officer for a handful of paper marks. At their proper price the two pictures would have kept Pierre for the best part of three months; as it was, they had only fetched barely sufficient to keep him for three weeks. Naturally, he was furious at the way in which he had been cheated of the full results of his work, and even more resentful about the future for himself that the incident foreshadowed. Few Parisians could any longer afford to buy works of art, so artists must now depend upon the Germans for such sales as they could make, but at the prices the Germans were paying this meant that Pierre would have to work at least three times as long hours as he had done previously and slave from dawn to sunset every day of the week to earn even a bare living.
    Another thing which was now embittering all Parisians was the huge number of German civilians which in recent weeks had flooded into the French capital. Towards the end of July half the wealthier population of greater Germany seemed to have woken up to the fact that Paris was now open to them. Thousands of German officers and S.S. men had sent for their wives, daughters, and sweethearts, and thousands upon thousands more German civilians of all ages and both sexes had descended, of their own initiative, upon Paris.
    Once there, they had begun a positive orgy of buying—silk stockings, hats, furs, models, jewels, wine, scent, cigars, toilet soaps, beauty preparations, and above all tinned foods of any kind that they could lay their hands upon. For a month past the shops had been as crowded as in an autumn sales week and the wretched shop-girls were absolutely worn out from attempting to serve an unending stream of fat, pimply German
hausfraus
, all arrogantly demanding instant attention, and quarrelling to the point of violence with each other over lengths of material and garments, which they snatched from the counters