and begin a conversation without
experiencing the slightest strangeness.

"They are talking of the war," he said again but with the commiseration
of a superior intelligence which foresees the future and feels above the
impressions of the vulgar crowd.

He knew exactly what course he was going to follow. He had disembarked
at ten o'clock the night before, and as it was not yet twenty-four hours
since he had touched land, his mentality was still that of a man who
comes from afar, across oceanic immensities, from boundless horizons,
and is surprised at finding himself in touch with the preoccupations
which govern human communities. After disembarking he had spent two
hours in a cafe in Boulogne, listlessly watching the middle-class
families who passed their time in the monotonous placidity of a life
without dangers. Then the special train for the passengers from South
America had brought him to Paris, leaving him at four in the morning
on a platform of the Gare du Nord in the embrace of Pepe Argensola, the
young Spaniard whom he sometimes called "my secretary" or "my valet"
because it was difficult to define exactly the relationship between
them. In reality, he was a mixture of friend and parasite, the poor
comrade, complacent and capable in his companionship with a rich youth
on bad terms with his family, sharing with him the ups and downs
of fortune, picking up the crumbs of prosperous days, or inventing
expedients to keep up appearances in the hours of poverty.

"What about the war?" Argensola had asked him before inquiring about the
result of his trip. "You have come a long ways and should know much."

Soon he was sound asleep in his dear old bed while his "secretary" was
pacing up and down the studio talking of Servia, Russia and the Kaiser.
This youth, too, skeptical as he generally was about everything not
connected with his own interests, appeared infected by the general
excitement.

When Desnoyers awoke he found her note awaiting him, setting their
meeting at five that afternoon and also containing a few words about the
threatened danger which was claiming the attention of all Paris. Upon
going out in search of lunch the concierge, on the pretext of welcoming
him back, had asked him the war news. And in the restaurant, the cafe
and the street, always war . . . the possibility of war with
Germany. . . .

Julio was an optimist. What did all this restlessness signify to a man
who had just been living more than