The two had passed on as though they did not recognize him.  Perhaps Captain Laurier did not see very clearly, but she had looked at him frankly and then hastily averted her eyes so as to evade his greeting. . . .  The old man felt sad over such indifference, not on his own account, but on his son’s.  Poor Julio! . . .  The unbending parent, in complete mental immorality, found himself lamenting this indifference as something monstrous.

The war was the other topic of conversation during the afternoons passed in the studio.  Argensola was not now stuffing his pockets with printed sheets as at the beginning of hostilities.  A serene and resigned calm had succeeded the excitement of those first moments when the people were daily looking for miraculous interventions.  All the periodicals were saying about the same thing.  He was content with the official report, and he had learned to wait for that document without impatience, foreseeing that with but few exceptions, it would say the same thing as the day before.

The fever of the first months, with its illusions and optimisms, now appeared to Argensola somewhat chimerical.  Those not actually engaged in the war were returning gradually to their habitual occupations.  Life had recovered its regular rhythm.  “One must live!” said the people, and the struggle for existence filled their thoughts with its immediate urgency.  Those whose relatives were in the army, were still thinking of them, but their occupations were so blunting the edge of memory, that they were becoming accustomed to their absence, regarding the unusual as the normal condition.  At first, the war made sleep out of the question, food impossible to swallow, and embittered every pleasure with its funereal pall.  Now the shops were slowly opening, money was in circulation, and people were able to laugh; they talked of the great calamity, but only at certain hours, as something that was going to be long, very long and would exact great resignation to its inevitable fatalism.

“Humanity accustoms itself easily to trouble,” said Argensola, “provided that the trouble lasts long enough. . . .  In this lies our strength.”

Don Marcelo was not in sympathy with the general resignation.  The war was going to be much shorter than they were all imagining.  His enthusiasm had settled on a speedy termination;—­within the next three months, the next Spring probably; if peace were not declared in the Spring, it surely would be in the Summer.

A new talker took part in these conversations.  Desnoyers had become acquainted with the Russian neighbor of whom Argensola had so frequently spoken.  Since this odd personage had also known his son, that was enough to make Tchernoff arouse his interest.

In normal times, he would have kept him at a distance.  The millionaire was a great believer in law and order.  He abominated revolutionists, with the instinctive fear of all the rich who have built up a fortune and remember their humble beginnings.  Tchernoff’s socialism and nationality brought vividly to his mind a series of feverish images—­bombs, daggers, stabbings, deserved expiations on the gallows, and exile to Siberia.  No, he was not desirable as a friend. . . .