She told him that she preferred the Irish half of him. For the English she had lost her love, on account of that monster, “Loy-Zhorzhe.”
Bertram groaned a little, and laughed a little, and begged her not to discuss politics.
She expressed the opinion that nothing mattered in life, except politics, because they dictated life. It was on account of politics that she paid three francs fifty for a bad déjeuner, instead of one franc seventy-five as in the good days before the war.
Before she had obtained three francs fifty worth of vile food, he learnt that she was a stenographer to a music publisher in the rue des Saints Pères, that her brother had been killed (like all the others) at Verdun, and that she had a lover who was a clerk in the Crédit Lyonnais.
She approached the subject of politics again, when she affirmed that Paris had lost its gaiety because of high prices. And high prices prevailed because the sales Boches refused to pay their reparations, much encouraged by England and America, for reasons she failed to understand.
“Quite simple reasons,” said Bertram. “Because England and America are persuaded that Germany’s bankruptcy would be the worst thing for Europe.”
“O, la, la! Je m’en fiche de l’Europe! Qu’est-ce-qu’il y a pour la France qui est tellement épuisée par l’agonie et l’outrage de la guerre?”
She didn’t care a jot for Europe. What did that have to do with France, agonised and outraged by war?
She gave a little gloved hand to Bertram, and thanked him for his conversation, before going back to her music-shop. She forgave him for being half English because he was altogether charming.
That encounter meant nothing in Bertram’s life, except relief from half an hour’s loneliness, and one more proof among a thousand, of the alarming dislike of England in France after war. What did it portend? It frightened him, and sickened him. Not in that was the spirit and chance of peace to which he had dedicated his brain and heart. How could a bridge be built over this widening gulf between the French and British foundations of faith for the future of Europe?