nt on sneeringly. "Always thinking of
yourself, of your pretty figure, how to keep yourself always here at
the bar, pretty and attractive, ready to gossip with all comers.
Nothing must interrupt that. You'd done your share, all that was
necessary. And I--poor fool--I let you! I didn't insist--I gave
in----"

"You wish to say----?" began Madame Maubert at last, breaking her
silence.

"Yes! To say just that!" burst out Maubert. "Just that--you coward!
When you might have--when you might have--made _this_ out of the
question for me." He shook his order for mobilisation. Again there was
a noise from the kitchen, again the sound of many young voices, and
one voice that ended in a cry, an irritated, angry, querulous howl.

"I see," said Madame Maubert slowly, "five instead of four--five
would have made it safe for you--eh? I didn't think of that--at the
time."

"Of your own self at the time--as always!" ground out Maubert, very
angry. He was a very big man, of the bully type, with a red neck that
swelled under his anger, or on the occasions when he had taken too
much red wine--which meant that it swelled very often and made him a
great brute, and his wife disliked him, and tried to put the zinc
counter between them or anything else that gave shelter.

"You selfish coward!" he cried out again, and slammed his fist down,
and then raised it again and shook it at her, "You could have saved me
from this--this--being mobilised----! Five instead of four! Five
instead of four! Then I would have been exempt, no matter what
happened! You contemptible----"

He struck at his wife, but missed her. The doorway darkened and two
soldiers entered, limping.

"My husband is mobilised," exclaimed Madame Maubert quickly. "His
country needs him--he is rather elevated in consequence! Doubtless he
will be of the auxiliaries, where there is less danger. Discomfort,
perhaps, but less danger. Nevertheless he is regretful," she concluded
scornfully. The simple soldiers, home on leave, laughed uproariously.
They placed a few sous upon the counter and asked for wine, and drank
to Maubert solicitously. Then they all drank together, to one
another's good fortune, and to La Patrie.

II

Maubert was at the Front. Near it, that is, but in the First Zone of
the Armies and shut off from communication with the rear. He was shut
off from communication with his wife and family, isolated in a little
hut standing by the roadside, his sentry box. A litt