My people, who enjoy being at Cannes, give way to my express wish: we are to leave again.
To-morrow will be our last day here. I am seated on the promenade. Where are the luxurious cars with their insolent footmen? Where are the dandies in white flannel, the fair pedestrians in toilettes fit for a queen? The patrons of the Riviera, this year, are those poor soldiers in faded uniforms.
I find myself near the place where the sea-gulls used, formerly, to whirl, catching in their flight the scraps which little girls threw to them. They have deserted the shore. They are playing together in the distance, skimming the gleaming surface of the waves.
I am waiting for Madeleine and my small nephew and niece. Here they come—she with her long veil. The passers-by think, as they meet her, of their losses of yesterday and to-morrow.
"A letter for you, Michel."
"Thanks."
I take it nonchalantly. Where is the news, to-day, with any power to stir me?
But the envelope torn the blood throbs in my temples! I can't believe....