“Ah, these women!” Desnoyers knew all about his relations (so far honorable) with a midinette from the rue Taitbout.  Sunday strolls in the suburbs of Paris, various trips to the moving picture shows, comments upon the fine points of the latest novel published in the sheets of a popular paper, kisses of farewell when she took the night train from Bois Colombes in order to sleep at home—­that was all.  But Argensola was wickedly counting on Father Time to mellow the sharpest virtues.  That evening they had taken some refreshment with a French friend who was going the next morning to join his regiment.  The girl had sometimes seen him with Argensola without noticing him particularly, but now she suddenly began admiring him as though he were another person.  She had given up the idea of returning home that night; she wanted to see how a war begins.  The three had dined together, and all her interest had centred upon the one who was going away.  She even took offense, with sudden modesty, when Argensola tried as he had often done before, to squeeze her hand under the table.  Meanwhile she was almost leaning her head on the shoulder of the future hero, enveloping him with admiring gaze.

“And they have gone. . . .  They have gone away together!” said the Spaniard bitterly.  “I had to leave them in order not to make my hard luck any worse.  To have worked so long . . . for another!”

He was silent for a few minutes, then changing the trend of his ideas, he added:  “I recognize, nevertheless, that her behavior is beautiful.  The generosity of these women when they believe that the moment for sacrifice has come!  She is terribly afraid of her father, and yet she stays away from home all night with a person whom she hardly knows, and whom she was not even thinking of in the middle of the afternoon! . . .  The entire nation feels gratitude toward those who are going to imperil their lives, and she, poor child, wishing to do something, too, for those destined for death, to give them a little pleasure in their last hour . . . is giving the best she has, that which she can never recover.  I have sketched her role poorly, perhaps. . . .  Laugh at me if you want to, but admit that it is beautiful.”

Desnoyers laughed heartily at his friend’s discomfiture, in spite of the fact that he, too, was suffering a good deal of secret annoyance.  He had seen Marguerite but once since the day of his return.  The only news of her that he had received was by letter. . . .  This cursed war!  What an upset for happy people!  Marguerite’s mother was ill.  She was brooding over the departure of her son, an officer, on the first day of the mobilization.  Marguerite, too, was uneasy about her brother and did not think it expedient to come to the studio while her mother was grieving at home.  When was this situation ever to end? . . .