tight when he feels he wants a breather is wiser than most of us.  We drink till we’re excited, and then we drink to get over it.  And I suppose the devil sits and grins.  Well, it’s a weary world, and there isn’t any good road out of it.  I sometimes wish I’d stopped a bullet earlier on in the day.  And yet I don’t know.  We do get some excitement.  Let’s go to a music-hall to-night.”

“What about dinner?”

“Oh, get a quiet one in a decent hotel.  I’ll have to clear out at half-time if you don’t mind.”

“Not a bit,” said Peter.  “Half will be enough for me, I think.  But let’s have dinner before we’ve had more of these things.”

The bar was filling up.  A few girls came and went.  Pennell nodded to a man or two, and finished his glass.  And they went off to dinner.

The music-hall was not much of a show, but it glittered, and people obviously enjoyed it.  Peter watched the audience as much as the stage.  Quite respectable French families were there, and there was nothing done that might not have been done on an English stage—­perhaps less, but the words were different.  The women as well as the men screamed with laughter, flushed of face, but an old fellow, with his wife and daughter, obviously from the country, sat as stiffly as an English farmer through it all.  The daughter glanced once at the two officers, but then looked away; she was well brought up.  A half-caste Algerian, probably, came on and danced really extraordinarily well, and a negro from the States, equally ready in French and English, sang songs which the audience demanded.  He was entirely master, however, and, conscious of his power, used it.  No one in the place seemed to have heard of the colour-bar, except a couple of Americans, who got up and walked out when the comedian clasped a white girl round the waist in one of his songs.  The negro made some remark that Peter couldn’t catch, and the place shook with laughter.

At half-time everyone flocked into a queer kind of semi-underground hall whose walls were painted to represent a cave, dingy cork festoons and “rocks” adding to the illusion.  Here, at long tables, everyone drank innocuous French beer, that was really quite cool and good.  It was rather like part of an English bank holiday.  Everybody spoke to everybody else, and there were no classes and distinctions.  You could only get one glass of beer, for the simple reason that there were too many drinking and too few supplying the drinks for more in the time.

“I must go,” said Pennell, “but don’t you bother to come.”

“Oh yes, I will,” said Peter, and they got up together.

In the entrance-hall, however, a girl was apparently waiting for someone, and as they passed Peter recognised her.  “Louise!” he exclaimed.

She smiled and held out her hand.  Peter took it, and Pennell after him.

“Do you go now?” she asked them.  “The concert is not half finished.”