I hesitated, all the same, for a long time. It was the effect of my rooted suspicion of my fellow-beings--I swear that I lacked the courage. One day, however, when we were marching--he was talking to me about his sister who was a musician--I made some allusion to Jeannine, also a musician. He looked at me, and I made up my mind to it, I so much wanted him to know. But my tone played me false in the most bizarre manner, cloaking itself in false irony. I seemed to be giving an account of a casual flirtation. What would this unimportant intrigue end in? I pretended to have no idea of it. And the word, the delicious word, which was ready to blossom on my lips, was never pronounced. Hypocritical trifling! How I cursed it, on looking back at it. How thankful I was to Claude for not adopting the same frivolous tone in his turn. If he had done so, that would have been the end of it. I should have retired within myself, embittered by the idea that I had been misunderstood or, worse still, we should have continued to make meaningless remarks on the subject, which would have done violence to my love. Instead of which Guillaumin guessed that I was, in spite of myself, the victim of an absurd timidity; it was he who, by insensible degrees directed our conversation into a more cordial and sincere channel. He made his interest clear to me. My confidence touched him, he refused to treat it as an insignificant sentiment. Then I took the final step, and knew the sweetness of self-abandonment. Without a blush, since I was sure that no chaffing threatened me, I was able to describe to him in detail the progress of the sweet seduction right up to the glorious ecstasy. He listened to me unwearyingly, encouraging me by a strange word or nod. The next day he gave me an opening, which I had vaguely desired, to return to my subject. He smiled at me, when my next letters came, and his eyes shone. His friendship performed the miracle of making him happy because I was. * * * * * De Valpic had stayed with us. I had pressed him in vain to report sick. Guillaumin, and the captain too had urged him to. Circumstances robbed our exhortation of all efficacy. He said repeatedly that it was a time when the country claimed the determined effort of all her sons. If I insisted, he cut me short with: "Dreher, you wouldn't desert us!..."