ened,
seated himself on the corner by her side, and they looked out into the
little flagged courtyard in which the men, some in grey shirt-sleeves,
some in tunics, were lounging about among the little piles of
accoutrements and packs. Here and there a man was shaving by the aid
of a bit of mirror supported on a handcart. Jests and laughter were
flung in the quiet afternoon air. A little group were feeding pigeons
which, at the sight of crumbs, had swarmed iridescent from the tall
_colombier_ in the far corner near the gabled barn. As Jeanne did not
speak, at last Doggie bent forward and, looking into her eyes, found
them moist with tears.

"What is the matter, Jeanne?" he asked in a low voice.

"The war, _mon ami_," she replied, turning her face towards him, "the
haunting tragedy of the war. I don't know how to express what I mean.
If all those brave fellows there went about with serious faces, I
should not be affected. _Mais, voyez-vous, leur gaiete fait peur._"

_Their laughter frightened her._ Doggie, with his quick
responsiveness, understood. She had put into a phrase the haunting
tragedy of the war. The eternal laughter of youth quenched in a gurgle
of the throat.

He said admiringly: "You are a wonderful woman, Jeanne."

Her delicate shoulders moved, ever so little. "A woman? I suppose I
am. The day before we fled from Cambrai it was my _jour de fete_. I
was eighteen."

Doggie drew in his breath with a little gasp. He had thought she was
older than he.

"I am twenty-seven," he said.

She looked at him calmly and critically. "Yes. Now I see. Until now I
should have given you more. But the war ages people. Isn't it true?"

"I suppose so," said Doggie. Then he had a brilliant idea. "But when
the war is over, we'll remain the same age for ever and ever."

"Do you think so?"

"I'm sure of it. We'll still both be in our twenties. Let us suppose
the war puts ten years of experience and suffering, and what not, on
to our lives. We'll only then be in our thirties--and nothing possibly
can happen to make us grow any older. At seventy we shall still be
thirty."

"You are consoling," she admitted. "But what if the war had added
thirty years to one's life? What if I felt now an old woman of fifty?
But yes, it is quite true. I have the feelings and the disregard of
convention of a woman of fifty. If there had been no war, do you think
I could have gone among an English army--_sans gene_--like an old
matron? Do