"Denais!"
I was thunder-struck. We had been bed-neighbours for a week, once, in the infirmary. We had seen a lot of him at F—— even during the last few days. I could see his face contracting at the notes of the "Funeral March." I heard him cry: "Oh, shut up! It's idiotic!..." And now he had "gone west."
What struck me most was that his disappearance did not seem to affect any one. Not a single regret was expressed. At the "Peloton" he had always, like myself, been one of those who knew how to get out of things, difficult—again like me—to "catch out," like me polite and sarcastic. General opinion classed us together as thorough egoists.
"And how about your foot?" Guillaumin asked me. "How's it getting on?"
It had not entered my head again!
"All the better! Because now we shall have to fight chiefly on our legs!"
"Do you think so?"
"We shall have to follow them up!"
"Rot!"
He looked at me.