Mouton-Massé vainly pointed out that liqueur glasses would do if the bottles were left on the table. He wouldn't be satisfied, so they gave him one. The staff had gone. The cigar smoke dimmed the light. The flowers were dying on the table. Surville snored. Mouton-Massé had pulled out a note-book and was attempting some absurd calculation in which he got tied up and swore volubly. Ribeyre, who hadn't abandoned his original notion, slipped his right arm under my left, his left under Clotilde's right, and drew us together. Then he whispered in the ear of the girl, who laughed gaily, her lips moist and a little shiver rippling down her back. * * * * * * By the evening of Friday, October 24th, 1913, everything was ready for my departure. My clothes were packed in a big, new trunk. A smaller one held my books. I hadn't the heart to throw away any of the poor friendly things I had accumulated in my lodgings, the relics of three years of joyless toil. I had it all properly packed in the old box which had been my mother's, not forgetting my uniform of an officer of the Reserve, already shabby with two periods of training--poor officers are never slow to avail themselves of these extra trainings. I took it to the station myself and dispatched it addressed to the old curé with whom I stayed in my vacations. At five o'clock I had finished a letter telling him of my new start in life. I had settled up my affairs. I had rather more than 2,300 francs left, allowing for ten louis I had been glad to lend Ribeyre. I decided to send the same amount to my old curé for his crumbling church among the dunes. When I had posted my letter in the Rue de Tournon, I made my way to Luxemburg. I passed the white Medici Fountain, where I had so often waited for the nymphs of my dreams. The sentry was sheltering out of sight in his box. The great Royal garden had never been so deserted as on this evening when autumn felt the first touch of winter. Beneath the bare trees, under a darkening golden sky, the cold circle of queens on their marble pedestals showed strangely white in the falling light. The clock of the Senate struck half-past five. The silence of death reigned in the heart of Paris. The fountains had ceased to play and the great octagonal basin spread its mirror, clearer--by some miracle--than the sky itself. A man, the only man beside myself in the famous garden, was standing at the edge in the curious attitude of a man sowing seeds. He was throwing bread to the birds. There were some three dozen sparrows, and fat grey pigeons, gawky, restless birds. He was an old man in a seedy black coat with the remains of a fur collar. There was a bag at his feet. I went up and the birds flew away. The old fellow cast me a reproachful glance, threw his bag over his shoulder and shambled off. When I left the garden myself it was quite dark. Four hours later I caught the Paris-Berlin express at the Gare de l'Est. II