“Shall we go up on the roof?” Marguerite asked, looking at the clock.
“We will go halfway up to the roof,” replied Paul, and Marguerite laughed as he put out the candles.
The next day the rebellion was over. A battalion from Meknes with a section of mitrailleuses marched in at three o’clock in the afternoon, having covered the sixty-five kilometres in a single stage. An order was given that every house which wished to avoid bombardment must fly the tricolour flag on the following morning, and Fez was garnished as for a festival. Never was there so swift a change. On every housetop daybreak saw the flag of France, and though the women thronged the terraces as yesterday, they were as silent as the bricks of their parapets. By a curious chance the pall of sullen rain-charged clouds, which for four days had hung low, was on this morning rolled away, and the city shimmered to the sun.
Paul and Marguerite watched the strange spectacle, hidden behind their roof wall; and their thoughts were busy with the same question:
Paul looked across the city to Fez Djedid and the East. From that quarter General Moinier’s column was advancing. One day—two days perhaps—three days at the most, and it would be here at the Bab Segma. There was little time!
He turned to find Marguerite’s eyes swimming in tears.
“Paul, can nothing be done to give you back your own place?”
“Nothing, Marguerite. Let us face it frankly! I went to Headquarters and warned them. Therefore I knew the danger. All the more, therefore, my place that night was with my company. Nothing can get over that.”
Marguerite with a sob buried her face in her hands.
“What you have given me, Marguerite!” he replied, and fell into a silence. When he spoke to her again he spoke with his eyes averted from her face, lest she should read more than he meant her to in his.
“Of course, Marguerite, you have done no wrong. . . . We have got to consider that, my dear. There isn’t really any reason why you should pay too. You wanted to take the risk. . . .”
“The certainty, Paul, as it turned out. I should not be in the sunshine on this roof now if you had listened to me,” she interrupted; but Paul was not to be led aside.
“What I mean is that you are not responsible. I am, I alone. Therefore, there’s no reason why you should cut yourself off from all the things which make life lovely,” he continued. “For it means that, my dear. All the things which make life lovely will go.”