mean to say that your mother, or that you have changed?"

"The whole world," repeated she.

"In what respect?"

"That's hard to define. One feels everywhere among people who know each
other, even in the family, that the relations are not the same. One is
never sure of anything any more; in the morning one says to oneself:
What is it I am going to experience this night? Shall I recognize it?
One is as if on a plank in the water just about to upset."

"What is it that's happened?"

"I don't know," said Luce, "I can't explain it. But it has come since
the war. There is something in the air. Everybody is troubled. In
families one sees people who were not capable of doing without one
another marching off today, each one in his own direction. And as if
intoxicated each one runs along with nose on the trail."

"Where do they go?"

"I don't know. And I believe they don't either. Either pure chance or
some desire spurs them. Women take lovers. Men forget their wives. And
kindly people, too, who generally appear so calm and so orderly!
Everywhere we hear of households broken up. It's the same between
parents and children. My mother...."

She stopped, then ran on:

"My mother lives her own life."

She stopped again:

"Oh, it's perfectly natural! She is still young, and poor mama has not
had much happiness; she has not poured out her sum of affection. She has
a right to want to make her life over again."

Pierre inquired:

"She wants to marry again?"

Luce shook her head. One could hardly know very well.... Pierre dared
not insist.

"She loves me well, still. But it's not the way it used to be. She is
able to do without me at present.... Poor mama! She would be so sorry if
she knew that her love for me is no longer in her heart as the first of
all! She would never confess that, never.... O, how queer it is, this
life!"

She wore a sweet smile, sorrowful and roguish. Upon her hands placed on
the table Pierre put his hands tenderly, and sat without motion.

"We are poor creatures," he muttered.

Luce continued in a moment:

"We two, how tranquil we are!... The others have the fever. The war. The
factories. People are in a hurry. They hustle. To work hard, to live, to
enjoy themselves...."

"Yes," said Pierre, "the time is short."

"All the more reason not to run!" said Luce. "One gets too soon to the
end. Let us walk slowly."

"But it's time that hurries along. Hold on to it well."

"I'm holding onto