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like himself as a schoolboy—the rigid parting of his dark hair, a line running from forehead to crown like a cut. “Louis, an .ancestor of yours must have been sliced by an axe,” a friend said to him. “Very likely,” he had answered calmly, “anything might happen to a Jew.”
    It is exaggerating to speak of his friends. So far as Rienne knew, Mathieu had no friends, and he had no family, no private life or affections. Even at school he had been respected, though he was not liked. His greed for facts, the thoroughness which seemed the whole of his nature, would have made him first in the examinations if Émile Bergeot had not so often stolen a march on him at the last minute by simple audacity. He was never beaten in history: where it touched France his mind was seized by the excitement, the foolish ardour of a boy for his first love, and he spent as much time studying her face.
    He was a poor man. The
Seuilly Journal
was not the most popular newspaper in the neighbourhood; it was too uncompromising, made no concessions to human weakness, there were no anecdotes, crimes of passion were either forgotten or dealt with in three lines: it was a paper for schoolmasters and mature men; above all, for Republicans. A Conservative, he cherished an idea of the Republic which would have surprised even its founders, and he hated its enemies on the Right as mercilessly as he hated socialists. He was a purist.
    Rienne halted beside him.
    â€œWhat are you doing here at this time of night, my dear Louis?”
    Mathieu smiled, if you can call it a smile when two lines move apart.
    â€œI had no idea it was this time. My watch had stopped. I came out to eat my dinner.”
    â€œYou’re unlucky.”
    â€œWorse, I’m starving. I remember eating a roll some time today, I can’t remember that I had anything else.”
    They had begun to walk slowly along the embankment. On their right, the Loire, out of respect for Mathieu’s calculating intellect, had become only a river, wide and modestly handsome, no longer what Rienne had just seen in it, a sign linking past and future of his province: the houses on their left were walls behind which men and women turned in their sleep, snored, scratched themselves, and dreamed their illogical dreams. No doubt Louis remained a sensible practical Frenchman even when he slept, just as everything he came near in his waking hours shrank or swelled to its exact size, not a grain more or less.
    Almost at the end of the Quai d’Angers Rienne looked at the shuttered window of a small café. Someone was awake there, a thread of light hung between the shutters.
    â€œPerhaps Marie would give us something to eat.”
    â€œMarie?”
    â€œShe and her husband had only just opened this place,” Rienne said, “when the war started and he was called up. They’re both young. They’d borrowed the money from his mother, and Marie keeps up the repayments; she serves in the café all day and does her work at night. I know all about it, my servant is her half-brother; when I’ve been out at night I breakfast here.”
    He knocked gently on the shutters. There was a pause, then a woman’s voice said nervously,
    â€œWho’s there?”
    â€œIt’s all right, Marie. It’s I, Colonel Rienne.”
    â€œAh, one moment, one moment.”
    With the noise of bolts and a chain, the door opened. Marie bolted it again after them.
    â€œYou needed something, sir?” she said anxiously.
    A pale young woman, small, thin: nature had intended herto grow plump when she was happily married, but nothing remained of this intention except a dimple; she worked too hard. She stood with bare arms hanging, her dark eyes fixed timidly and obstinately on Rienne.
    â€œMarie,” Rienne said, “my friend is starving. Can you give us a cup of coffee?”
    â€œYes, indeed.” Her expression changed quickly to one of pride; she