The effect of that wink was instantaneous. The girl blushed vividly and giggled, while the crowd shouted with laughter.
“Quel numéro! Quel drôle de type!” said a man by my side.
Only the four gentleman of the Town Hall, who had resumed their top-hats, looked perplexed at this grotesque contrast between the heroic speech (it had sounded heroic) and its anti-climax.
Fortune took me by the arm as I edged my way close to him.
“My dear fellow, it was unbelievable when those four old birds sang ‘Tipperary’ with bared heads. I had to stand at the salute while they sang three verses with tears in their eyes. They have been learning it during four years of war. Think of that! And think of what’s happening in Ireland—in Tipperary—now! There’s some paradox here which contains all the comedy and pathos of this war. I must think it out. I can’t quite get at it yet, but I feel it from afar.”
“This is not a day for satire,” I said. “This is a day for sentiment. These people have escaped from frightful things——”
Fortune looked at me with quizzical grey eyes out of his handsome, mask-like face.
“Et tu, Brute? After all our midnight talks, our laughter at the mockery of the gods, our intellectual slaughter of the staff, our tearing down of all the pompous humbug which has bolstered up this silly old war!”
“I know. But to-day we can enjoy the spirit of victory. It’s real, here. We have liberated all these people.”