However, going to the front that night was unhandy. He had a rendez-vous with Andree and an appointment to dine with Monsieur Robert.... But that would be possible. Number 10 rue Ste.-Anne was just around the corner from Marty’s. He could dine and then hasten to be where his orders called him.... Andree was eclipsed by the adventure.
At noon he packed such things as were necessary and whisked them by taxicab to rue Ste.-Anne where he left them in charge of a sergeant in the Assistant Provost Marshal’s office. This left him free until nine o’clock.... He was proud that his equipment contained a steel helmet and gas-mask.
It was an exultant and excited young man who waited for Andree at the Metro station in the Place de la Concorde that evening. He wanted to tell her. He wanted to impress her with the fact that he was a real soldier and was going into danger. He even rehearsed the nonchalant speech which would announce it to her.... And at last she appeared—again in white, again with that quaint air of detachment and concentration, and still very lovely in her fragile, slender way.... Suddenly he was sorry he was going, because it meant an absence from her.
Now she was recognizing him in that delightfully timid way of hers—doubting her welcome until he reassured her.
“Good evening, monsieur,” she said in French. She was always formal in those first few moments.
“I’ve wanted to see you—wanted to see you ever since you left me last night,” he said, rather unexpectedly to himself, especially unexpected in its truth, for it was true, though he realized it only then.
“That is well,” she said, and looked up at him quickly, smilingly, with something shining in her eyes that had never been there before. “And I have thought of you.”
“It has been a long day.... All the days are long because you are not with me.”
“It is true?” She paused, demanding to be assured that he was speaking in earnest, and he took her arm and pressed it to his side. “That is nice,” she said. “You should miss me at all times. Oh yes. Ver’, ver’ much.... And I shall also miss you.”
“My dear,” he said, bending close to her ear, “do you love me?”