They met the morning following their conversation about ten o'clock in Olivier's salon. To hear them greet each other, to hear Pierre ask about Berthe, to listen to Olivier's replies, and then to hear the two speak of the paper they had been reading, of the weather, of what they were going to do, one would never have thought their first meeting so painful. Pierre felt that his friend was studying him. And he was studying his friend. Each hungered and thirsted to know at once if the other had had the same thoughts, or rather the same thought, during the hours they had been separated. Each read this thought in the eyes of the other, as distinctly as though it had been written upon paper like the horrible sentence that had enlightened Pierre. The invisible phantom stood between them, and they were silent. And yet they saw through the open window that the radiant Southern spring still filled the sky with blue, still beautified the roads with flowers and sweetened the air with perfume. One of them proposed a walk, in the vain hope that a little of the luminous serenity of nature might enter their souls. They used to like to walk together formerly, thinking aloud, keeping step in their minds as in their bodies. They went out, and after ten minutes conversation came to an end between them. Instinctively, and without prearrangement, they shunned the quarters in Cannes where they ran the risk of meeting either Ely or any one of her set. They kept away from the Rue d'Antibes, La Croisette, and the Quai des Yachts. They avoided even the pine forest near Vallauris, where they had spoken of her upon the day that Olivier arrived. Behind one of the hills which served as outposts to California, they found a deserted valley, quite neglected on account of its northern situation. In this valley there was a kind of wild park, which had been for sale for years. There, in this ravine without horizon, they came almost like two wounded animals taking refuge in the same fold. The roads were so narrow that they could no longer walk abreast. This gave them a pretext for ceasing to talk. The branches stung their faces, their hands were torn with thorns before they arrived at the little rivulet running at the bottom of the gorge. They sat down upon a rock among the tall ferns, and the savageness of this corner of the world, so solitary, and yet so close to the charming city, soothed their suffering for a few moments. The fresh humidity of the vegetation growing in the shadow recalled to their minds similar ravines in the woods of Chaméane. And then they could speak again together, could recall their childhood and their distant friendly souvenirs. It seemed as though they felt their friendship dying away, and that they sought desperately the place whence it had sprung in order to revive its force. From their childhood they passed to their youth, to the years spent together in college, to the impression the war had made upon them.