“But, my dear, it's only profiteers who can eat brioches now-a-days.”
“You just watch us.”
They went into a patisserie. An elderly woman with a lean yellow face and thin hair waited on them, casting envious glances up through her eyelashes as she piled the rich brown brioches on a piece of tissue paper.
“You'll pass the day in the country?” she asked in a little wistful voice as she handed Andrews the change.
“Yes,” he said, “how well you guessed.”
As they went out of the door they heard her muttering, “O la jeunesse, la jeunesse.”
They found a table in the sun at a cafe opposite the gate from which they could watch people and automobiles and carriages coming in and out. Beyond, a grass-grown bit of fortifications gave an 1870 look to things.
“How jolly it is at the Porte Maillot!” cried Andrews.
She looked at him and laughed.
“But how gay he is to-day.”