Gaston whispered gloomily behind my chair: “ Mon petit caporal ”⁠—he called me that because of a fancied likeness to the young Napoleon⁠—“ dites donc. Vous croyex quils vont passer par Amiens? Non, ce n’est pas possible, ça! Pour la deuxième fois? Non. Je refuse à le croire. Mais c’est mauvais, c’est affreux, après tant de sacrifice! ”

Madame, of the cash-desk, sat in the dining-room, for company’s sake, fixing up accounts as though the last day of reckoning had come⁠ ⁠… as it had. Her hair, with its little curls, was still in perfect order. She had two dabs of color on her cheeks, as usual, but underneath a waxen pallor. She was working out accounts with a young officer, who smoked innumerable cigarettes to steady his nerves. “Von Tirpitz” was going round in an absentminded way, pulling at his long whiskers.

The war correspondents talked together. We spoke gloomily, in low voices, so that the waiters should not hear.