Julie nodded. “It is true,” she said very gravely; “before that I was stupid because of my blindness. Everything felt very strange, and I stumbled about like an old blind horse. I was terribly stupid, far more so than many. Then one night Véronique asked Thérèse to help me, and the next day I could find my way round our room. From then on my fingers saw what they touched, and now I can even make lace quite well because of this sight in my fingers.” Then turning to the smiling Mademoiselle Duphot: “But why do you not show her picture to Stévenne?”
So Mademoiselle Duphot went and fetched the small picture of Thérèse, which Stephen duly examined, and the face that she saw was ridiculously youthful—round with youth it still was, and yet very determined. Sœur Thérèse looked as though if she really intended to become a saint, the devil himself would be hard put to it to stop her. Then Puddle must also examine the picture, while Stephen was shown some relics, a piece of the habit and other things such as collect in the wake of sainthood.
When they left, Julie asked them to come again; she said: “Come often, it will give us such pleasure.” Then she thrust on her guests twelve yards of coarse lace which neither of them liked to offer to pay for.
Mademoiselle murmured: “Our home is so humble for Stévenne; we have very little to offer.” She was thinking of the house in the Rue Jacob, a grand house, and then too she remembered Morton.
But Julie, with the strange insight of the blind, or perhaps because of those eyes in her fingers, answered quickly: “She will not care, Véronique, I cannot feel that sort of pride in your Stévenne.”
V
After their first visit they went very often to Mademoiselle’s modest little apartment. Mademoiselle Duphot and her quiet blind sister were indeed their only friends now in Paris, for Brockett was in America on business, and Stephen had not rung up Valérie Seymour.
Sometimes when Stephen was busy with her work, Puddle would make her way there all alone. Then she and Mademoiselle would get talking about Stephen’s childhood, about her future, but guardedly, for Puddle must be careful to give nothing away to the kind, simple woman. As for Mademoiselle, she too must be careful to accept all and ask no questions. Yet in spite of the inevitable gaps and restraints, a real sympathy sprang up between them, for each sensed in the other a valuable ally who would fight a good fight on behalf of Stephen. And now Stephen would quite often send her car to take the blind Julie for a drive beyond Paris. Julie would sniff the air and tell Burton that through smelling their greenness she could see the trees; he would listen to her broken and halting English with a smile—they were a queer lot these French. Or perhaps he would drive the other Mademoiselle up to Montmartre for early Mass on a Sunday. She belonged to something to do with a heart; it all seemed rather uncanny to Burton. He thought of the Vicar who had played such fine cricket, and suddenly felt very homesick for Morton. Fruit would find its way to the little apartment, together with cakes and large marrons glacés. Then Mademoiselle Duphot would become frankly greedy, eating sweets in bed while she studied her booklets on the holy and very austere Thérèse, who had certainly not eaten marrons glacés.
Thus the spring, that gentle yet fateful spring of 1914, slipped into the summer. With the budding of flowers and the singing of birds it slipped quietly on towards great disaster; while Stephen, whose book was now nearing completion, worked harder than ever in Paris.
XXXIV
I
War. The incredible yet long predicted had come to pass. People woke in the mornings with a sense of disaster, but these were the old who, having known war, remembered. The young men of France, of Germany, of Russia, of the whole world, looked round them amazed and bewildered; yet with something that stung as it leapt in their veins, filling them with a strange excitement—the bitter and ruthless potion of war that spurred and lashed at their manhood.
They hurried through the streets of Paris, these young men; they collected in bars and cafés; they stood gaping at the ominous government placards summoning their youth and strength to the colours.
They talked fast, very fast, they gesticulated: “C’est la guerre! C’est la guerre!” they kept repeating.
Then they answered each other: “Oui, c’est la guerre.”
And true to her traditions the beautiful city sought to hide stark ugliness under beauty, and she decked herself as though for a wedding; her flags streamed out on the breeze in their thousands. With the paraphernalia and pageantry of glory she sought to disguise the true meaning of war.
But where children had been playing a few days before, troops were now encamped along the Champs Élysées. Their horses nibbled the bark from the trees and pawed at the earth, making little hollows; they neighed to each other in the watches of the night, as though in some fearful anticipation. In bystreets the unreasoning spirit of war broke loose in angry and futile actions; shops were raided because of their German names and their wares hurled out to lie in the gutters. Around every street corner some imaginary spy must be lurking, until people tilted at shadows.
“C’est la guerre,” murmured women, thinking of their sons.
Then they answered each other: “Oui, c’est la guerre.”
Pierre said to Stephen: “They will not take me because of my heart!” And his voice shook with anger, and the anger brought tears which actually splashed the jaunty stripes of his livery waistcoat.
Pauline said: “I gave my father
