"The Old Men again!" I said. "It is strange. In Germany, in France, in England, even in America, people are talking strangely about the Old Men as though they were guilty of all this agony. That is remarkable."
"They were guilty," said Pierre Nesle. "It is against the Old Men in all countries of Europe that Youth will declare war. For it was their ideas which brought us to our ruin."
He spoke so loudly that people in the restaurant turned to look at him. He paid his bill and spoke in a lower voice.
"It is dangerous to talk like this in public. Let us walk up the Champs Élysées, where I am visiting some friends."
Suddenly a remembrance came back to him.
"Your friends, too," he said.
"My friends?"
"But yes; Madame Chéri and Hélène. After Edouard's death they could not bear to live in Lille."
"Edouard, that poor boy who came back? He is dead?"
"He was broken by the prison life," said Pierre. "He died within a month of Armistice, and Hélène wept her heart out."
He confided a secret to me. Hélène and he had come to love each other, and would marry when they could get her mother's consent—or, one day, if not.
"What's her objection?" I asked. "Why, it's splendid to think that Hélène and you will be man and wife. The thought of it makes me feel good."
He pressed my arm and said, "Merci, mille fois, mon cher."
Madame Chéri objected to his political opinions. She regarded them as poisonous treachery.
"And Hélène?"
