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boy, with the odd chanting accent of American
children brought up in
France
.
    “That song about ‘Mon Ami Pierrot .’”
    Brother
and sister stood side by side without self-consciousness and their voices
soared sweet and shrill upon the evening air.
    “Au clair de la lune
Mon Ami Pierrot
Prête-moi ta plume
Pour écrire un mot
Ma chandelle est morte
Je n’ai plus de feu
Ouvre-moi ta porte
Pour l’amour de Dieu .”
    The
singing ceased and the children, their faces aglow with the late sunshine,
stood smiling calmly at their success. Rosemary was thinking that the Villa
Diana was the centre of the world. On such a stage some memorable thing was
sure to happen. She lighted up higher as the gate tinkled open and the rest of
the guests arrived in a body—the McKiscos , Mrs.
Abrams, Mr. Dumphry , and Mr. Campion came up to the
terrace.
    Rosemary
had a sharp feeling of disappointment—she looked quickly at Dick, as though to
ask an explanation of this incongruous mingling. But there was nothing unusual
in his expression. He greeted his new guests with a proud bearing and an
obvious deference to their infinite and unknown possibilities. She believed in
him so much that presently she accepted the rightness of the McKiscos ’ presence as if she had expected to meet them all
along.
    “I’ve
met you in
Paris
,” McKisco said to Abe North, who with his wife had
arrived on their heels, “in fact I’ve met you twice.”
    “Yes, I
remember,” Abe said.
    “Then
where was it?” demanded McKisco , not content to let
well enough alone.
    “Why, I
think—” Abe got tired of the game, “I can’t remember.”
    The
interchange filled a pause and Rosemary’s instinct was that something tactful
should be said by somebody, but Dick made no attempt to break up the grouping
formed by these late arrivals, not even to disarm Mrs. McKisco of her air of supercilious amusement. He did not solve this social problem
because he knew it was not of importance at the moment and would solve itself.
He was saving his newness for a larger effort, waiting a more significant
moment for his guests to be conscious of a good time.
    Rosemary
stood beside Tommy Barban —he was in a particularly
scornful mood and there seemed to be some special stimulus working upon him. He
was leaving in the morning.
    “Going
home?”
    “Home? I
have no home. I am going to a war.”
    “What
war?”
    “What
war? Any war. I haven’t seen a paper lately but I
suppose there’s a war—there always is.”
    “Don’t
you care what you fight for?”
    “Not at all—so long as I’m well treated. When I’m in a rut I come to see
the Divers, because then I know that in a few weeks I’ll want to go to war.”
    Rosemary
stiffened.
    “You
like the Divers,” she reminded him.
    “Of
course—especially her—but they make me want to go to war.”
    She
considered this, to no avail. The Divers made her want to stay near them
forever.
    “You’re
half American,” she said, as if that should solve the problem.
    “Also
I’m half French, and I was educated in
England
and since I was eighteen
I’ve worn the uniforms of eight countries. But I hope I did not give you the
impression that I am not fond of the Divers— I am, especially of Nicole.”
    “How
could any one help it?” she said simply.
    She felt
far from him. The undertone of his words repelled her and she withdrew her
adoration for the Divers from the profanity of his bitterness. She was glad he
was not next to her at dinner and she was still thinking of his words
“especially her” as they moved toward the table in the garden.
    For a
moment now she was beside Dick Diver on the path. Alongside his hard, neat
brightness everything faded into the surety that he knew everything. For a
year, which was forever, she had had money and a certain celebrity and contact
with the celebrated, and these latter had presented themselves merely as
powerful