“Poor little hat,” said Andrews, “but it is so beautiful today, and you are very lovely, Jeanne.”
“The great Napoleon must have said that to the Empress Josephine and you know what he did to her,” said Jeanne almost solemnly.
“But she must have been awfully bored with him long before.”
“No,” said Jeanne, “that's how women are.”
They went through big iron gates into the palace grounds.
Later they sat at a table in the garden of a little restaurant. The sun, very pale, had just showed itself, making the knives and forks and the white wine in their glasses gleam faintly. Lunch had not come yet. They sat looking at each other silently. Andrews felt weary and melancholy. He could think of nothing to say. Jeanne was playing with some tiny white daisies with pink tips to their petals, arranging them in circles and crosses on the tablecloth.
“Aren't they slow?” said Andrews.
“But it's nice here, isn't it?” Jeanne smiled brilliantly. “But how glum he looks now.” She threw some daisies at him. Then, after a pause, she added mockingly: “It's hunger, my dear. Good Lord, how dependent men are on food!”
Andrews drank down his wine at a gulp. He felt that if he could only make an effort he could lift off the stifling melancholy that was settling down on him like a weight that kept growing heavier.
A man in khaki, with his face and neck scarlet, staggered into the garden dragging beside him a mud-encrusted bicycle. He sank into an iron chair, letting the bicycle fall with a clatter at his feet.