"No, I've teased you enough! I don't want you to have unpleasant recollections of me...." "Don't you worry," I said, smiling; "the recollections are charming." The train started off, without a whistle. The girl held out her gloved hand to me through the window; I seized it; she gave mine a fleeting squeeze. André waved his hat, Madame Landry bowed. I walked along beside the carriage for a few yards, and nodded a last farewell. CHAPTER II A YOUNG MAN OF 1914 "Hello! the Paris papers not come yet?" "Just what I was saying to these gentlemen." "You don't know when they ought to get here?" "We know nothing about it, sir." "Have you any left from last night...?" The saleswoman looked through the rows. "Not a single one, sir." I left the station, thinking what a sell! I had hardly gone a hundred yards before I heard myself called. "Halloa there! Signor Dreher!" I turned round: "Oh! It's you!" "I say, pretty bad, the news, what!" "Really, let's hear it?" "I've just glanced through the _Tribune de Lausanne_. Berlin announces that war is imminent; Austria is mobilising; they say we're going to do the same thing." "No?" I was dumbfounded for a moment; then, "Oh come! You'll see that affairs will settle themselves yet." He shook his head: "It's quite true; nobody wants to fight. What about you, would it convey anything to you to go and get your skin punctured?" I shrugged my shoulders: "Those are all journalists' tales! As copy is scarce in summer, they start rumours of tension, of possible rupture, at this season, every year...." "Suppose it should be serious, this time...?" "Nonsense! Can you see the French and Germans breaking each other's heads ... for Serbia?" We followed the dusty road, ascending from Ballaigues; then in the high path to La Ferrière, I persuaded my companion to bear me company on the way to Jougne. Cipollina was the only Frenchman of my age whom I had met at the hotel. He was a dark-haired youth, slight and elegant, with refined features, but a crooked nose, a blemish which, according to Jeannine, gave him an expression of incredible falseness. The ladies had not allowed him to meddle with them at all; the cold manner in which they had acknowledged his greetings sometimes made me ill at ease, as I was a friend of his. A friend! Well, hardly. But for Laquarrière I had no intimate friend, and no wish for any; I made use of Cipollina to fill up the intervals when convention forbade my intruding upon the Landrys.