s, had in her reply, set
the usual hour of five o'clock, believing that after passing a few
minutes in the Printemps or the Galeries on the pretext of shopping, she
would be able to slip over to the unfrequented garden without risk of
being seen by any of her numerous acquaintances.

Desnoyers was enjoying an almost forgotten sensation, that of strolling
through vast spaces, crushing as he walked the grains of sand under
his feet. For the past twenty days his rovings had been upon planks,
following with the automatic precision of a riding school the oval
promenade on the deck of a ship. His feet accustomed to insecure
ground, still were keeping on terra firma a certain sensation of elastic
unsteadiness. His goings and comings were not awakening the curiosity of
the people seated in the open, for a common preoccupation seemed to
be monopolizing all the men and women. The groups were exchanging
impressions. Those who happened to have a paper in their hands, saw
their neighbors approaching them with a smile of interrogation. There
had suddenly disappeared that distrust and suspicion which impels the
inhabitants of large cities mutually to ignore one another, taking each
other's measure at a glance as though they were enemies.

"They are talking about the war," said Desnoyers to himself. "At this
time, all Paris speaks of nothing but the possibility of war."

Outside of the garden he could see also the same anxiety which was
making those around him so fraternal and sociable. The venders of
newspapers were passing through the boulevard crying the evening
editions, their furious speed repeatedly slackened by the eager hands
of the passers-by contending for the papers. Every reader was instantly
surrounded by a group begging for news or trying to decipher over his
shoulder the great headlines at the top of the sheet. In the rue des
Mathurins, on the other side of the square, a circle of workmen under
the awning of a tavern were listening to the comments of a friend who
accompanied his words with oratorical gestures and wavings of the paper.
The traffic in the streets, the general bustle of the city was the same
as in other days, but it seemed to Julio that the vehicles were whirling
past more rapidly, that there was a feverish agitation in the air and
that people were speaking and smiling in a different way. The women of
the garden were looking even at him as if they had seen him in former
days. He was able to approach them