A CHAPTER DEPICTING A RATHER GARRULOUS REUNION The second day we ran out of the storm. I remember on that day that I wore a rather doggy suit of gray—a trifle too doggy for a man of my years. In my button-hole reposed a white carnation, and as I strolled into the smoking-room I was humming under my breath an air from "Miss Helyet"—a thing I had not thought of in twenty years. "Well, upon my word!" exclaimed a man who looked up from his novel as I entered the doorway.[Pg 15] "Gad! You haven't changed in twenty years!—except that your moustache is——" [Pg 15] "Sure! And my temples, Williams! Besides, I have two grown-up daughters aboard! How are you, anyway, you Latin Quarter come-back?" We settled ourselves, hands still warmly clasped. "You're not going back to Paris?" I asked. "Why, man, I live there." "By George, so you do! I forgot." There was a silence—that smiling, retrospective silence which ends inevitably in a sigh not entirely painful. "Are any of the old men left there?" I asked. "Some." "I—I suppose the city has changed a lot. Men who've been over since, say so." "It hasn't changed, radically." "Hasn't it, Williams?" I asked wistfully. "No. The old café is exactly the same. The Luxembourg Quarter will seem familiar to you——" "I'm not going there," I said hastily. He smiled; I could see him doing it, askance. But my features remained dignified and my attitude detached.
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