‘Come, eat something,’ said Sandoz to her.  ’We’ll wait well enough till you have done.’

But she was obstinate and remained standing.

’Never mind me.  You had better pass the bread—­yes, there, behind you on the sideboard.  Jory prefers crumb, which he can soak in the soup.’

Sandoz rose in his turn and assisted his wife, while the others chaffed Jory on his love for sops.  And Claude, moved by the pleasant cordiality of his hosts, and awaking, as it were, from a long sleep, looked at them all, asking himself whether he had only left them on the previous night, or whether four years had really elapsed since he had dined with them one Thursday.  They were different, however; he felt them to be changed:  Mahoudeau soured by misery, Jory wrapt up in his own pleasures, Gagniere more distant, with his thoughts elsewhere.  And it especially seemed to him that Fagerolles was chilly, in spite of his exaggerated cordiality of manner.  No doubt their features had aged somewhat amid the wear and tear of life; but it was not only that which he noticed, it seemed to him also as if there was a void between them; he beheld them isolated and estranged from each other, although they were seated elbow to elbow in close array round the table.  Then the surroundings were different; nowadays, a woman brought her charm to bear on them, and calmed them by her presence.  Then why did he, face to face with the irrevocable current of things, which die and are renewed, experience that sensation of beginning something over again —­why was it that he could have sworn that he had been seated at that same place only last Thursday?  At last he thought he understood.  It was Sandoz who had not changed, who remained as obstinate as regards his habits of friendship, as regards his habits of work, as radiant at being able to receive his friends at the board of his new home as he had formerly been, when sharing his frugal bachelor fare with them.  A dream of eternal friendship made him changeless.  Thursdays similar one to another followed and followed on until the furthest stages of their lives.  All of them were eternally together, all started at the self-same hour, and participated in the same triumph!

Sandoz must have guessed the thought that kept Claude mute, for he said to him across the table, with his frank, youthful smile: 

’Well, old man, here you are again!  Ah, confound it! we missed you sorely.  But, you see, nothing is changed; we are all the same—­aren’t we, all of you?’

They answered by nodding their heads—­no doubt, no doubt!

‘With this difference,’ he went on, beaming—­’with this difference, that the cookery is somewhat better than in the Rue d’Enfer!  What a lot of messes I did make you swallow!’

After the bouillabaisse there came a civet of hare; and a roast fowl and salad terminated the dinner.  But they sat for a long time at table, and the dessert proved a protracted affair, although the conversation lacked the fever and violence of yore.  Every one spoke of himself and ended by relapsing into silence on perceiving that the others did not listen to him.  With the cheese, however, when they had tasted some burgundy, a sharp little growth, of which the young couple had ordered a cask out of the profits of Sandoz’s first novel, their voices rose to a higher key, and they all grew animated.