"Well, I didn't say a word to Jennie. We got up and went out sketching. But forgetting that word, and all the French I heard sounding so awfully funny and foreign, was on my mind all the time. And the next thing was that I forgot the word for willow--I happened to be sketching some willows. Couldn't think of the French for willow. And all day it was the same. Some people came and looked over my shoulder while I was painting, but all I could make out was the word 'Salon,' and, of course, that's just as much English as French. "Then I started talking bits of French to Jennie, and she got a bit cross--didn't you, sweetheart? She thought I was pulling her leg about her own French. And so it went on all day, and me getting more and more excited about it. Then at night I told Jennie all about it. I told her she'd have to go out and do the shopping, because I simply daren't. I'd had little jokes with the shop people, you see, and I thought to myself, 'By Jove, if they joke back now I shan't have a word to say!' You see what I'm getting at, don't you?" Dismay filled my heart. So this was the magnificent news that had thrown them so ecstatically into one another's arms! This was what had happened in the night this time! He, who the evening before had sung to the poilus downstairs, had had to send her to do their shopping! Little enough to rejoice over, I thought. But he went on. "Then to-night, just before you came in, it happened again. Some French word or other, quite a simple one--I just couldn't remember the English for it. It was hardly a moment before you came in. I tell you it's all going away from me by leaps and bounds. Even when I know the words my tongue won't pronounce them properly. And then you came in. You see what it means, don't you?" "What does it mean?" I managed to ask. It seemed to me to mean only one thing--the beginning of the end. "What does it mean?" he exulted. "Why, it means that I'm simply _me_--just myself and none of this beastly Arnaud business--a fresh start it means." I glanced at Jennie. "I wonder whether you'd mind getting another glass and letting me share your milk," I said. Then, when the door had closed behind her, "This is simply the old thing over again, Derry. You've talked about fresh starts before." He laughed. "Is that all you sent her out for? She knows all about it. Of course I really started some time ago. I think I told you so. All I'm telling you this for now is because it absolutely clinches it!" "How does forgetting clinch anything?"