"What does it mean?" I managed to ask. It seemed to me to mean only one thing—the beginning of the end.
"What does it mean?" he exulted. "Why, it means that I'm simply me—just myself and none of this beastly Arnaud business—a fresh start it means."
I glanced at Jennie. "I wonder whether you'd mind getting another glass and letting me share your milk," I said.
Then, when the door had closed behind her, "This is simply the old thing over again, Derry. You've talked about fresh starts before."
He laughed. "Is that all you sent her out for? She knows all about it. Of course I really started some time ago. I think I told you so. All I'm telling you this for now is because it absolutely clinches it!"
"How does forgetting clinch anything?"
"Because it is forgetting!" he cried triumphantly, echoing and confirming my own abstruse meditation as I had watched the shirley poppies over the ramparts. "I say, I mustn't shout, though. I'm not supposed to know any English except the few words Jennie's taught me. Great jokes we've had about that! So doesn't this prove it? Why, what am I doing remembering things all that time ago? I'm not perfectly right till I've forgotten every single thing! And I'm forgetting without trying; you can't try to forget. Heaps of things have gone besides French—heaps of English things. Why, I've forgotten——"
"You remember me?"
"Yes. I met you at the Airds. I told you the whole story out at Le Port one night. You can't have forgotten!"
"Hadn't we met before then?"