ing the course of his own reflections.
Marguerite! . . . She had come back at last, and yet each time seemed to
be drifting further away from him. . . .

In the first days of the mobilization, he had haunted her neighborhood,
trying to appease his longing by this illusory proximity. Marguerite
had written to him, urging patience. How fortunate it was that he was a
foreigner and would not have to endure the hardship of war! Her brother,
an officer in the artillery Reserves, was going at almost any minute.
Her mother, who made her home with this bachelor son, had kept an
astonishing serenity up to the last minute, although she had wept much
while the war was still but a possibility. She herself had prepared the
soldier's outfit so that the small valise might contain all that was
indispensable for campaign life. But Marguerite had divined her poor
mother's secret struggles not to reveal her despair, in moist eyes and
trembling hands. It was impossible to leave her alone at such a time.
. . . Then had come the farewell. "God be with you, my son! Do your duty,
but be prudent." Not a tear nor a sign of weakness. All her family had
advised her not to accompany her son to the railway station, so his
sister had gone with him. And upon returning home, Marguerite had found
her mother rigid in her arm chair, with a set face, avoiding all mention
of her son, speaking of the friends who also had sent their boys to the
war, as if they only could comprehend her torture. "Poor Mama! I ought
to be with her now more than ever. . . . To-morrow, if I can, I shall
come to see you."

When at last she returned to the rue de la Pompe, her first care was to
explain to Julio the conservatism of her tailored suit, the absence of
jewels in the adornment of her person. "The war, my dear! Now it is the
chic thing to adapt oneself to the depressing conditions, to be frugal
and inconspicuous like soldiers. Who knows what we may expect!" Her
infatuation with dress still accompanied her in every moment of her
life.

Julio noticed a persistent absent-mindedness about her. It seemed
as though her spirit, abandoning her body, was wandering to far-away
places. Her eyes were looking at him, but she seldom saw him. She would
speak very slowly, as though wishing to weigh every word, fearful of
betraying some secret. This spiritual alienation did not, however,
prevent her slipping bodily along the smooth path of custom, although
afterwards she would seem to f