an with a
very brown oval face to which long eyelashes and a little bit of silky
black moustache gave almost a winsomeness. When he laughed he showed
brilliant, very regular teeth. As he handed the cigarettes about he
looked searchingly at Martin with eyes disconcertingly intense. "Merrier
has told us about you," he said. "You seem to be the first American
we've met who agreed with us."

"What about?"

"About the war, of course."

"Yes," took up the fourth man, a blonde Norman with an impressive,
rather majestic face, "we were very interested. You see, we bore each
other, talking always among ourselves.... I hope you won't be offended
if I agree with you in saying that Americans never think. I've been in
Texas, you see."

"Really?"

"Yes, I went to a Jesuit College in Dallas. I was preparing to enter the
Society of Jesus."

"How long have you been in the war?" asked Andre Dubois, passing his
hand across his beard.

"We've both been in the same length of time--about six months."

"Do you like it?"

"I don't have a bad time.... But the people in Boccaccio managed to
enjoy themselves while the plague was at Florence. That seems to me the
only way to take the war."

"We have no villa to take refuge in, though," said Dubois, "and we have
forgotten all our amusing stories."

"And in America--they like the war?"

"They don't know what it is. They are like children. They believe
everything they are told, you see; they have had no experience in
international affairs, like you Europeans. To me our entrance into the
war is a tragedy."

"It's sort of goin' back on our only excuse for existing," put in
Randolph.

"In exchange for all the quiet and the civilisation and the beauty of
ordered lives that Europeans gave up in going to the new world we gave
them opportunity to earn luxury, and, infinitely more important, freedom
from the past, that gangrened ghost of the past that is killing Europe
to-day with its infection of hate and greed of murder.

"America has turned traitor to all that, you see; that's the way we look
at it. Now we're a military nation, an organised pirate like France and
England and Germany."

"But American idealism? The speeches, the notes?" cried Lully, catching
the edge of the table with his two brown hands.

"Camouflage," said Martin.

"You mean it's insincere?"

"The best camouflage is always sincere." Dubois ran his hands through
his hair.

"Of course, why should there be any di