connections
and interests, above all my style, demand Paris. . . .'

Barnet considered the sky, from which a light rain was beginning to
fall, the wide fields about them from which the harvest had been taken,
the trimmed poplars by the wayside.

'Naturally,' he agreed, 'you want to go to Paris. But Paris is over.'

'Over!'

'Finished.'

'But then, Monsieur--what is to become--of ME?'

Barnet turned his face westward, whither the white road led.

'Where else, for example, may I hope to find--opportunity?'

Barnet made no reply.

'Perhaps on the Riviera. Or at some such place as Homburg. Or some
plague perhaps.'

'All that,' said Barnet, accepting for the first time facts that had
lain evident in his mind for weeks; 'all that must be over, too.'

There was a pause. Then the voice beside him broke out. 'But, Monsieur,
it is impossible! It leaves--nothing.'

'No. Not very much.'

'One cannot suddenly begin to grow potatoes!'

'It would be good if Monsieur could bring himself----'

'To the life of a peasant! And my wife----You do not know the
distinguished delicacy of my wife, a refined helplessness, a peculiar
dependent charm. Like some slender tropical creeper--with great white
flowers.... But all this is foolish talk. It is impossible that Paris,
which has survived so many misfortunes, should not presently revive.'

'I do not think it will ever revive. Paris is finished. London, too, I
am told--Berlin. All the great capitals were stricken....'

'But----! Monsieur must permit me to differ.'

'It is so.'

'It is impossible. Civilisations do not end in this manner. Mankind will
insist.'

'On Paris?'

'On Paris.'

'Monsieur, you might as well hope to go down the Maelstrom and resume
business there.'

'I am content, Monsieur, with my own faith.'

'The winter comes on. Would not Monsieur be wiser to seek a house?'

'Farther from Paris? No, Monsieur. But it is not possible, Monsieur,
what you say, and you are under a tremendous mistake.... Indeed you are
in error.... I asked merely for information....'

'When last I saw him,' said Barnet, 'he was standing under the signpost
at the crest of the hill, gazing wistfully, yet it seemed to me a little
doubtfully, now towards Paris, and altogether heedless of a drizzling
rain that was wetting him through and through....'

Section 5

This effect of chill dismay, of a doom as yet imperfectly apprehended
deepens as Barnet's record passes on to tell o