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? . . .

That check for four hundred thousand francs which he had brought from
America was also worrying him. The day before, the bank had declined to
pay it for lack of the customary official advice. Afterward they said
that they had received the advice, but did not give him the money. That
very afternoon, when the trust companies had closed their doors, the