"Luck.... But we lost many dear friends. Oh, it's always like that."
"Look what I brought back--a German gun," said André Dubois, going to the corner of the room.
"That's some souvenir," said Tom Randolph, sitting up suddenly, shaking himself out of the reverie he had been sunk in all through the talk of the evening.
"And I have three hundred rounds. They'll come in handy some day."
"That's the stuff I like to hear," cried Randolph, getting to his feet. "Why wait for the war to end?"
"Why? Because we have not the courage.... But it is impossible until after the war."
"One last bottle of champagne," cried Merrier.
They seated themselves round the table again. Martin took in at a glance the eager sunburned faces, the eyes burning with hope, with determination, and a sudden joy flared through him.
"Oh, there is hope," he said, drinking down his glass. "We are too young, too needed to fail. We must find a way, find the first step of a way to freedom, or life is a hollow mockery."
"To Revolution, to Anarchy, to the Socialist state," they all cried, drinking down the last of the champagne. All the candles but one had guttered out. Their shadows swayed and darted in long arms and changing, grotesque limbs about the room.
"But first there must be peace," said the Norman, Jean Chenier, twisting his mouth into a faintly bitter smile.
"Of all slaveries, the slavery of war, of armies, is the bitterest, the most hopeless slavery." Lully was speaking, his smooth brown face in a grimace of excitement and loathing. "War is our first enemy."
"But oh, my friend," said Merrier, "we will win in the end. All the people in all the armies of the world believe as we do. In all the minds the seed is sprouting."
"Before long the day will come. The tocsin will ring."
"Do you really believe that?" cried Martin. "Have we the courage, have we the energy, have we the power? Are we the men our ancestors were?"
"No," said Dubois, crashing down on the table with his fist; "we are merely intellectuals. We cling to a mummified world. But they have the power and the nerve."
"We only can combat the lies," said Lully; "they are so easily duped. After the war that is what we must do."
"Oh, but we are all such dupes," cried Dubois. "First we must fight the lies. It is the lies that choke us."