a long time, and
regarded with curiosity the relaxed, deep breathing body of the
American soldier.

The next day was Claude's twenty-fifth birthday, and in honour of
that event Papa Joubert produced a bottle of old Burgundy from
his cellar, one of a few dozens he had laid in for great
occasions when he was a young man.

During that week of idleness at Madame Joubert's, Claude often
thought that the period of happy "youth," about which his old
friend Mrs. Erlich used to talk, and which he had never
experienced, was being made up to him now. He was having his
youth in France. He knew that nothing like this would ever come
again; the fields and woods would never again be laced over with
this hazy enchantment. As he came up the village street in the
purple evening, the smell of wood-smoke from the chimneys went to
his head like a narcotic, opened the pores of his skin, and
sometimes made the tears come to his eyes. Life had after all
turned out well for him, and everything had a noble significance.
The nervous tension in which he had lived for years now seemed
incredible to him... absurd and childish, when he thought of
it at all. He did not torture himself with recollections. He was
beginning over again.

One night he dreamed that he was at home; out in the ploughed
fields, where he could see nothing but the furrowed brown earth,
stretching from horizon to horizon. Up and down it moved a boy,
with a plough and two horses. At first he thought it was his
brother Ralph; but on coming nearer, he saw it was himself,--and
he was full of fear for this boy. Poor Claude, he would never,
never get away; he was going to miss everything! While he was
struggling to speak to Claude, and warn him, he awoke.

In the years when he went to school in Lincoln, he was always
hunting for some one whom he could admire without reservations;
some one he could envy, emulate, wish to be. Now he believed that
even then he must have had some faint image of a man like
Gerhardt in his mind. It was only in war times that their paths
would have been likely to cross; or that they would have had
anything to do together... any of the common interests that
make men friends.

XIV

Gerhardt and Claude Wheeler alighted from a taxi before the open
gates of a square-roofed, solid-looking house, where all the
shutters on the front were closed, and the tops of many trees
showed above the garden wall. They crossed a paved court and
rang at the door. An