he man who was reading his
paper raised his head and looked irritably at them over his spectacles
as though a fly were distracting him with its buzzing. . . . The very
idea of talking love-nonsense in a public garden when all Europe was
threatened with calamity!

Repelling the audacious hand, Marguerite spoke tranquilly of her
existence during the last months.

"I have passed my life the best I could, but I have been greatly bored.
You know that I am now living with mama, and mama is a lady of the old
regime who does not understand our tastes. I have been to the theatres
with my brother. I have made many calls on the lawyer in order to learn
the progress of my divorce and hurry it along . . . and nothing else."

"And your husband?"

"Don't let's talk about him. Do you want to? I pity the poor man!
So good . . . so correct. The lawyer assures me that he agrees to
everything and will not impose any obstacles. They tell me that he does
not come to Paris, that he lives in his factory. Our old home is closed.
There are times when I feel remorseful over the way I have treated him."

"And I?" queried Julio, withdrawing his hand.

"You are right," she returned smiling. "You are Life. It is cruel but
it is human. We have to live our lives without taking others into
consideration. It is necessary to be selfish in order to be happy."

The two remained silent. The remembrance of the husband had swept across
them like a glacial blast. Julio was the first to brighten up.

"And you have not danced in all this time?"

"No, how could I? The very idea, a woman in divorce proceedings! . . .
I have not been to a single chic party since you went away. I wanted to
preserve a certain decorous mourning fiesta. How horrible it was! . . .
It needed you, the Master!"

They had again clasped hands and were smiling. Memories of the previous
months were passing before their eyes, visions of their life from five
to seven in the afternoon, dancing in the hotels of the Champs Elysees
where the tango had been inexorably associated with a cup of tea.

She appeared to tear herself away from these recollections, impelled
by a tenacious obsession which had slipped from her mind in the first
moments of their meeting.

"Do you know much about what's happening? Tell me all. People talk so
much. . . . Do you really believe that there will be war? Don't you
think that it will all end in some kind of settlement?"

Desnoyers comforted her with his o