them like a glacial blast. Julio was the first to brighten up.

"And you have not danced in all this time?"

"No, how could I? The very idea, a woman in divorce proceedings! . . .
I have not been to a single chic party since you went away. I wanted to
preserve a certain decorous mourning fiesta. How horrible it was! . . .
It needed you, the Master!"

They had again clasped hands and were smiling. Memories of the previous
months were passing before their eyes, visions of their life from five
to seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs Elysees
where the tango had been inexorably associated with a cup of tea.

She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled
by a tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first
moments of their meeting.

"Do you know much about what's happening? Tell me all. People talk so
much. . . . Do you really believe that there will be war? Don't you
think that it will all end in some kind of settlement?"

Desnoyers comforted her with his optimism. He did not believe in the
possibility of a war. That was ridiculous.

"I say so, too! Ours is not the epoch of savages. I have known some
Germans, chic and well-educated persons who surely must think exactly as
we do. An old professor who comes to the house was explaining yesterday
to mama that wars are no longer possible in these progressive times. In
two months' time, there would scarcely be any men left, in three, the