Once, when he was dozing in the train speeding southwards to Bordeaux, he woke up and laughed as he remembered the ludicrous amazement on the face of Desirée as he left her suddenly and gladly to take up his work.
VIII
The matters that occupied his mind belonged only to his work. In the early morning at Bordeaux, when he had to change, he bought a budget of morning papers, and read them in the refreshment-room over his roll and coffee. The news was alarming enough: people were fleeing from Narbonne and the neighbouring towns. Seven had been shot in a riot on the previous night; the soldiery was in charge of the town, and martial law had been proclaimed.
The French journalists excelled themselves in superlatives ... their stories were vain accounts of personal emotions and experiences, for it is the fashion with them to thrust their personality in front of the news.
Thereafter, on the journey to Narbonne, Humphrey wondered how he was going to get his telegrams out of the town, if it were besieged. He bought a map of the district and studied it: it might be necessary to send a courier to Perpignan, or back to Bordeaux, or, if things were very bad indeed, there were carrier pigeons; the Spanish frontier at Port Bou was not very far away also ... perhaps, he could find some one to whom to telephone. It was his business to get any news out of Narbonne, and there would be no excuse for failure.
The people in his carriage were talking of the shooting.
"I shouldn't like to be going there," one said.
"It will be worse to-night," another remarked. "Those Southerners lose their heads so quickly."