For a fortnight after that he lived on his twenty francs and in a state of complete happiness, presenting the picture, unnatural and against all reason, of a contented légionnaire; every evening he would call in on Mimi, drink her vile coffee, smoke cigarettes, dream of fortune, and make love to her as well as he could in the presence of the other customers. She would give him no appointment outside for a walk on the ramparts or through the great boulevards and he did not grumble; her strictness and propriety pleased him almost as much as her black coiled hair; this was a proper woman, a woman a man could trust, if not, _nom de Dieu!_ whom could one trust? One evening at the end of the fortnight, having spent his last copper, he called on this trustworthy woman to draw five francs of his money. Jacques felt rather shamefaced over the business, but, putting a bold face on the matter, he entered the little café, only to find the bar deserted. It was early in the evening, a bit before the hour when légionnaires might be expected, and the space before the counter, with its rickety chairs and stained marble-topped tables, was also empty. From the little room at the back of the bar came voices in amicable conversation, Mimi's voice and another--the voice of Corporal Zeiss! Jacques stood for a moment like a man petrified, then he knocked on the counter with one of the glass cigarette-ash trays and the lady appeared. Seeing Jacques, she closed the door of the little room and came forward smiling and quite unruffled, and he, white under his sunburning, but showing nothing of his feelings, made his request for the five francs. She gave it to him without a murmur and he took it, paid for a drink, chatted for a few minutes, and then, saying that he had some business on hand in the town, took his departure. Outside he hid in the shadow of a doorway. He had not long to wait. Some customers went into the café and almost as soon as they entered out came Zeiss, walking with a light step and with the jaunty air of a man very well satisfied with himself. He passed so close to Jacques that the latter could see his earrings, or at least the right earring. Then Zeiss vanished round a corner and Jacques returned to the barracks. He wanted to be alone, a most dangerous sign in a man of Jacques' mentality and character. He knew that at this hour the barracks would be empty of all but the sentries and the men under sentence of confinement to barracks, and he found no one in the big bedroom where he slept and where now he lay down on his bed to think. He was thinking of how he should kill Zeiss. All sorts of tempting ways occurred to him and were played with by his mind, but they had all one fault--they would also inevitably kill Jacques. He was a very brave man, but he had no fancy at all for facing the firing-squad.