"Not to him alone. Perhaps to you, too." "Little liar! Bad boy. You don't even know me." "As if one could say such a thing! We have seen each other I don't know how often!" "Thrice, counting this time." "Ah--you remember, then? You see that we are old acquaintances!" "Let's talk about it." "I'm agreed. That's all I want!... Oh, come, let us sit there! Just an instant, won't you please? It's so nice at the edge of the water!" (They were near the Galathea Fountain, which the masons had covered over with tarpaulins to protect it from the bombs.) "I really can not, I shall miss my train." She gave him the hour. He showed her that she had more than twenty-five minutes. Yes, but she wanted first to buy her lunch at the corner of Rue Racine, where they keep good little buns. He hauled one out of his pocket. "No better than this one.... Don't you really want to take it?..." She laughed and hesitated. He put it in her hand and kept hold of her hand. "You would give me such pleasure!... Come now, come and sit down...." He led her to a bench in the middle of the walk that runs about the basin. "I've something else...." He brought out of his pocket a chocolate tablet. "_Gourmand!_ ... And what besides?..." "Only--I'm ashamed. It's not in its wrapper." "Give it me, give it! It's just the war." He looked on as she nibbled. "It's the first time," said he, "that I've thought the war had any good in it." "Oh, let's not talk of it! It is so completely overwhelming!" "Yes," he said, enthusiastic, "we shall never speak of it." (All of a sudden the atmosphere began to grow lighter.) "Look at those pierrots who are taking their tub." (She pointed to the sparrows that were attending to their toilets on the edge of the basin.) "But, then--the other night" (he followed her thought) "the other night in the subway--tell me now, you did see me then?" "Sure." "But you never looked my way. All the time you stayed turned in the other direction.... See now, just as at present...." He gazed at her profile as she nibbled at her bun, looking straight ahead of her with roguish eyes. "Do look at me a moment!... What are you gazing at off there?" She did not turn her head. He took her right hand, the glove of which was torn at the index, and showed the end of the finger. "What are you looking at?" "And you examining my glove!... Will you be so kind as not to tear it more!" [In a distracted fashion he was engaged in making the hole larger.] "Oh, forgive me!... But how were you able to see?" She did not answer; but in that mocking profile he could see the corner of her eye and that was laughing. "Oh, you slyboots!" "It's very simple. Everybody can do that." "I never could." "Just try.... You simply squint." "I never could, never. In order to see it's necessary for me to look right to the front, stupidly." "Oh, no, not so stupidly!" "At last! I see your eyes." They looked at each other, gently laughing. "What's your name?" "Luce."