David paused and sat puffing at his pipe.  Just then a soft movement stirred the brakes on the hillside.  A little barefoot girl stood there, looking about.  She had heard voices, but at first did not see the uniforms that blended with the yellow and brown of the wood.  Then she saw the sun shining on two heads; one square, and amber in colour,—­the other reddish bronze, long and narrow.  She took their friendliness for granted and came down the hill, stopping now and again to pick up shiny horse chestnuts and pop them into a sack she was dragging.  David called to her and asked her whether the nuts were good to eat.

“Oh, non!” she exclaimed, her face expressing the liveliest terror, “pour les cochons!” These inexperienced Americans might eat almost anything.  The boys laughed and gave her some pennies, “pour les cochons aussi.”  She stole about the edge of the wood, stirring among the leaves for nuts, and watching the two soldiers.

Gerhardt knocked out his pipe and began to fill it again.  “I went home to see my mother in May, of 1914.  I wasn’t here when the war broke out.  The Conservatoire closed at once, so I arranged a concert tour in the States that winter, and did very well.  That was before all the little Russians went over, and the field wasn’t so crowded.  I had a second season, and that went well.  But I was getting more nervous all the time; I was only half there.”  He smoked thoughtfully, sitting with folded arms, as if he were going over a succession of events or states of feeling.  “When my number was drawn, I reported to see what I could do about getting out; I took a look at the other fellows who were trying to squirm, and chucked it.  I’ve never been sorry.  Not long afterward, my violin was smashed, and my career seemed to go along with it.”

Claude asked him what he meant.

“While I was at Camp Dix, I had to play at one of the entertainments.  My violin, a Stradivarius, was in a vault in New York.  I didn’t need it for that concert, any more than I need it at this minute; yet I went to town and brought it out.  I was taking it up from the station in a military car, and a drunken taxi driver ran into us.  I wasn’t hurt, but the violin, lying across my knees, was smashed into a thousand pieces.  I didn’t know what it meant then; but since, I’ve seen so many beautiful old things smashed...  I’ve become a fatalist.”

Claude watched his brooding head against the grey flint rock.

“You ought to have kept out of the whole thing.  Any army man would say so.”

David’s head went back against the boulder, and he threw one of the, chestnuts lightly into the air.  “Oh, one violinist more or less doesn’t matter!  But who is ever going back to anything?  That’s what I want to know!”

Claude felt guilty; as if David must have guessed what apostasy had been going on in his own mind this afternoon.  “You don’t believe we are going to get out of this war what we went in for, do you?” he asked suddenly.