And Humphrey wanted love: the desire for love, love inseparable from passion, had made a turbulent underflow beneath the stream of his life. Twice he had tried to grasp love, twice it had eluded him. He had been despoiled by circumstance ... cheated by his own conscience.
It was miraculous to him now, that he should be able to wrest his prize from life with so little struggle after all. He looked at Desirée, and her eyes smiled—how incredibly near they seemed to one another, how the unattainable drew close to him and smiled....
He became aware of his name spoken aloud, and he looked up and saw a waiter looking round the room, with Dagneau at his side. Dagneau's face was strained and anxious. He seemed out of breath. Suddenly he caught sight of Humphrey, and hurried towards him. He raised his hat to the group. "Pardon, mad'm'selle," he said to Desirée, as he put a telegram before Humphrey.
The blue slips pasted on the paper danced before his eyes.
"Qu'est que c'est?" Margot asked, fussily.
"Ferrol wants you to go to Narbonne," Dagneau said. "There's been shooting there.... I looked up the trains. You can catch the one o'clock from the Gare d'Orsay if you hurry."
Humphrey stared stupidly at the telegram, and Desirée touched him with her hand.
"C'est quelque chose de grave?" she asked.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Narbonne," he said to Charnac, laconically.