A fortnight later--the second day of August, to be exact.
The Taverne Joseph, that popular restaurant in the Boulevard d'Anspach,
in Brussels, where, beneath the shadow of the Bourse, the business-man
gets such delicious _plats du jour_, was crowded, as it always is each
day at noon. The many little tables set out upon the pavement, along
which the life of the bright little Belgian capital ebbed and flowed,
were filled by men who daily, year in and year out, ate their midday
meal, gossiped, and drank long glasses of iced _bock_.
At one table, in a corner by the glass screen which divided the pavement
before Joseph's establishment from that belonging to a restaurant next
door, Edmond Valentin sat alone.
He had every reason to congratulate himself most heartily. An hour ago,
after making a most brilliant and impassioned speech for the defence in
the Assize Court, the trial of the Affaire of the Rue du Trone had at
last ended. The chemist's assistant, Sigart, a cruel-hearted assassin
who had killed his young wife by administering gelsiminium--as the
prosecution had alleged--had been acquitted, and upon Edmond's
remarkable success he had been everywhere congratulated by his
_confreres_ in the great atrium of the Courts.
As he sat alone, idly watching the passers-by, he was wondering what
Aimee would think. She would read in the _Petit Bleu_ that night the
account of the trial, which she was so closely following, he knew. What
would she say when she saw that he had been successful--that he had made
a name in the legal world at last!
He was in the act of lighting a cigarette, one of a special brand of
Egyptians which were sold only at the little _Mosque_ in the courtyard
of the Grand Hotel opposite, when a strident voice reached his ear, and
next second a perspiring young vendor of newspapers, in a peaked cap,
thrust under his nose a newspaper, crying in French, "German Ultimatum
to Belgium!--_V'la Le Journal_!" He paid his sou, and eagerly opened
the thin damp sheet.
His quick eyes scanned the sinister news which the paper contained, to
the effect that the German Minister in Brussels had, at seven o'clock on
the previous evening, offered Belgium an _entente_ with Germany in
return for her facilitating German military operations. A pistol was
held at Belgium's head. She had been given till seven o'clock that
morning to reply. A Council Meeting had been held which had lasted till
midnight, after which Messieurs Hymans and Van den Heuvel had drafted a
reply, which for three hours further had been discussed. Belgium relied
upon the treaty to which Germany herself had been signatory,
guaranteeing her neutrality, and had therefore replied that she could
not accept the proposal.
Edmond Valentin held his breath as he read those significant lines of
print.
Half the men in the restaurant eagerly bought papers, were silent for a
moment, and then the greatest excitement was apparent everywhere.
"_War with Germany_!" yelled the newsvendors in strident tones as they
rushed along the Boulevard, and even the police--the most correct in
Europe--were so dumbfounded that they did not raise a voice in protest
at this unseemly breach of the regulation which prohibits the crying of
news.
Belgium had defied the great and terrible machine of Prussian
militarism. She had told the Kaiser, openly and plainly, that she
would, like Holland, remain neutral, in accordance with the solemn
treaty to which the Powers had put their signatures.
"Well, my friend," remarked a fat stockbroker, to whom Valentin was
known as having his lunch daily at the Joseph. "This is defiance--eh?
We have held up our hand to stop the great War Lord of Germany. We have
no quarrel with our neighbours. This is only newspaper gossip. There
will be no war, I assure you. A Bourse canard--perhaps."
"But if Germany attacks us?" queried the young lawyer, placing his
newspaper on the table.
"Bah! that she will never do. We know the Kaiser and his mailed fist of
old. If Russia has mobilised, surely it cannot concern us?"
"But France and Great Britain are Russia's allies, remember."
"Exactly. Germany will never dare to face Europe with only Austria, an
effete nation, as an ally. Your agreement supports mine, my dear
friend," laughed the fat over-dressed man, who wore a large diamond in
his cravat.
"But are there not already violations of the French frontier, and also
in Luxembourg? The Germans have also occupied frontier towns in
Russia," Edmond argued.
"_Bien_! But it is only a menace on the part of Germany--and menace is
not war. Do not forget the Agadir incident. No, no, m'sieur. The
coming war is not yet--not yet, although I quite admit that we have felt
the unrest on the Bourse this morning."
"Unrest?" echoed Edmond. "I tell you that to-day there is war in the
air, m'sieur! The German Emperor has created, by his clever chicanery,
a diplomatic position in Europe which is impossible. The preparations
of Prussia are complete. That the Emperor means war is apparent to
those who have studied events, as I have, ever since the deplorable
assassinations in Sarajevo."
"Ah! _mon ami_, I see you are pessimistic," laughed the stockbroker,
draining his glass of Benedictine. "It would be bad for Belgium if all
her sons were alarmists like yourself."
"No, m'sieur, pardon?" was Edmond Valentin's quick response. "If all
were like yourself, we should be lulled to deep by the assurances of our
bitter enemy--the enemy who intends to march through this capital of
ours to Antwerp, and the sea."
"Bah! The old story told to us for so many years!" laughed the man at
the next table as he rose slowly and took his straw hat. "We shall meet
here again--say this day week, and then you will be forced to admit the
truth of my argument."
"Well--let us hope so, m'sieur. We shall see," Valentin replied with a
gesture of apprehension, which showed him to be concerned.
The fat man wished him a merry "_bon jour_," and passed out upon the
sun-baked pavement, where the excited crowds were now hurrying, eagerly
discussing the alarming news.
"War! _War_! WAR!"
The word was upon everyone's lips throughout the length and breadth of
the animated little capital of _les braves Belges_--the people so long
sneered at by their superiors in Paris until the very expression had
become synonymous of a populace actuated by timid arrogance, and who
merely aped all the culture and most of the vices of the Parisians.
When the optimistical stockbroker had gone, Edmond again took up his
paper and read how Sir Edward Grey had made a statement in the House of
Commons, in London, regarding the obligations of honour, and of national
security involved in the maintenance by Great Britain of Belgian
neutrality. France and Russia were already in a state of war with
Germany. Would Great Britain stand by Belgium?
Upon the _terrasse_ of the crowded restaurant and within, the sole topic
of the excited conversation was the seriousness of the situation. Old
men who had been scared times without number by the war-clouds which had
risen over Europe, laughed to scorn the idea of a great conflict.
"My dear Jules?" shouted a thin-faced, white-bearded man--the head of a
great commercial house--across the restaurant. "Do not give it another
thought. There will be no war. The Germans are not yet ready, and the
diplomats will arrange it all, as they always do. They are paid for it.
The Kaiser's bark is worse than his bite."
Whereat many laughed.
But not so Edmond Valentin. He had been a close student of
international politics, and in order to supplement his income at the
criminal bar, he had often written articles upon international politics
for the _Independance Belge_, and the _Matin_ of Antwerp. What he had
feared and predicted was, alas! coming rapidly true.
Germany, with her horde of spies everywhere in Belgium, France, and
England, and her closely guarded military and naval secrets had deceived
Europe. She was fully prepared--and her Emperor intended to make war,
and to crush civilisation beneath the despotic heel of Prussian
militarism. The cross of Christ was to be overthrown by the brutal
agnosticism of Nietzsche, the blasphemous "philosopher" who died in a
madhouse.
Edmond Valentin held his breath, and replacing the paper again upon the
table, while the buzz of dispute and argument was still in his ears,
stared straight before him into the busy, glaring thoroughfare.
War! _War_! WAR!
At length he rose, and making his way blindly to the Bourse, only a few
steps away, he boarded one of the open-air trains, and ascended the
steep, winding streets, the narrow Marche aux Herbes, and the Rue de la
Madeline, until he reached the broad Rue de la Regence, which led
straight up to the great facade of the domed Palais de Justice.
Half-way up the street he alighted and, entering a block of offices,
ascended to his bureau.
The city was agog with excitement. In that hot, blazing noontide,
everyone seemed outside discussing the grave peril in which Belgium was
now placed by daring to stem the overwhelming tide of Teutons.
"If they come they will not hurt us," a man in the tram had laughed.
"They will simply march through Belgium--that is all. What on earth
have we to fear?"
Edmond had overheard those words. They represented the opinion of the
populace, who had been frightened by the bogey of threatened war so many
times, until now they had grown to regard the regularly rising cloud
over Europe as part of the German policy, the brag and swagger of the
great War Lord.
Edmond was alone. His one clerk was still away at his _dejeuner_ as
usual, from noon till two o'clock. From the open window of the small,
dingy room he watched the animated scene below--watched like a man in a
dream.
At the moment he was not thinking of the threatened war, but of the man
Arnaud Rigaux.
An imprecation escaped his set teeth, as his face assumed a dark,
threatening expression, his strong hands clenched, as they always did
when certain thoughts arose.
"One day ere long," he murmured, "we will settle the account between us,
m'sieur. With us it is an eye for an eye, but you little dream what
form my revenge will take. The hour is now fast approaching--depend
upon it!"
Turning suddenly from the window, he lit a cigarette, for, like most
Belgians, he was an inveterate smoker as well as something of a dandy in
his attire, and seating himself at his big writing-table he began to
scribble hastily memorandum after memorandum. For fully two hours he
continued.
Old Andre, his clerk, returned, and placed a copy of a newspaper
containing the report of the Affaire of the Rue du Trone at his elbow,
saying:
"The Press are full of your praise, m'sieur. Is it not splendid--
magnificent!"
But his master took no heed, so intent was he upon his writing,
referring to various bundles of legal papers before him, as he scribbled
on.
Then, at last, just before four o'clock, he put on his hat and went
forth again, walking to the Palais de Justice, where, after searching
through the courts, he found, in the dark panelled Court of Appeal, a
_confrere_ of his--a tall, thin man, with a bushy black beard. His
friend congratulated him heartily upon his success in the _cause
celebre_ that morning, after which they both went out into the atrium
and sat upon a bench, while Edmond Valentin gave him a number of
instructions.
Afterwards, just before five, Edmond emerged again, crossed into the
wide, leafy Avenue Louise, and boarding a tram, rode straight up that
splendid boulevard of fine private residences, to the gates of the
pretty natural park of which Bruxellois are so proud, the Bois de la
Cambre. Upon a seat in one of the secluded paths, not far from the
entrance, he found Aimee, dressed in white embroidered muslin, awaiting
him.
"Ah, Edmond!" she cried, springing up. "Terrible, is it not? There
will be war! You were right--quite right--dearest. Germany intends to
encroach upon our land?"
"Yes, darling," he replied, bending over her little gloved hand with
_deep_ apology at being late. "I fear that it is so, and that we shall
be compelled to defend ourselves," he sighed. "The terror of war is
upon us."
"But there will not be fighting in Belgium--surely?" the girl declared.
"Colonel Maclean, the British military attache, was at lunch with us
to-day, and he told my father that England did not anticipate war. It
is only the German nature to be aggressive against Russia."
"Ah! no. Do not believe the optimists, my darling," the man said,
seating himself at her side. "Do not believe in the soft words and the
self-styled culture of the Germans. They are the natural enemies of
Europe, and the camarilla of Potsdam intends now to fight for
world-power."
She was silent, tracing a semicircle on the gravel with the ferrule of
her white silk sunshade.
It was a pretty, leafy nook where they were sitting--a spot where it was
often their habit to meet in secret when she was in Brussels. That big
white mansion of the Baron Henri de Neuville he had passed half-way up
the Avenue Louise was one of the largest and most handsome private
residences in Brussels, with its imposing gates of ornamental ironwork
surmounted by a gilt coronet, and huge glass-covered winter-garden--a
place pointed out to _messieurs_, the tourists of the Agence Cook, who
passed daily in the motor char-a-banc, as the "town-house of the Baron
de Neuville, the great Belgian millionaire," as the uniformed guide put
it each morning in his parrot-like English, when he conducted his
charges on their way to the field of Waterloo.
"Do you know, Aimee," exclaimed her companion seriously at last, "I have
decided to return to my old regiment, and to act my part--the part of a
true Belgian. I can at once return as _sous-officier_."
"What?" gasped the girl in quick alarm. "But, Edmond--you--you--you
might be wounded if war really broke out! You might even be killed!
No! For my sake, dear, don't go," she implored, placing her trembling
little hand upon his arm and looking up appealingly into his eyes.
"War will be upon us, if not to-day, then to-morrow. My place is in the
ranks of the defenders," he said firmly. "I have no money-bags to
protect, as your father the Baron has. My profession will be at an end
with war, hence I have decided. I have made all arrangements for my
friend Verbruggen to take my cases in the Courts."
"And you will really rejoin the Chasseurs-a-pied?" she asked anxiously.
"I shall. It is only my duty, dearest. Against the great Germany our
little Belgium will require every man who can hold a rifle," replied her
lover. "The German Kaiser means war--and war means the shedding of
blood in our land."
"But think--if you were killed, Edmond!" she gasped, staring at him.
"I should at least die knowing that we loved each other, darling," he
answered, taking her hand tenderly in his own and raising it to his
lips. "You are mine, and I am yours; only death can part us."
He glanced up and down. They were alone in that narrow, leafy way, with
the birds twittering gaily above them, and the hot sunshine filtering
through the branches; for the charm of the Bois was its rural
picturesqueness, near as it was to the centre of the gay, vivacious
little capital.
His arm stole very slowly around her waist, and she fell back into his
embrace in the supreme ecstasy of that moment.
"Though the barrier between us--the barrier of money--is insurmountable,
Aimee, I love you better--ah! better than my own life, sweetheart.
To-day, though the sun still shines over our dear Belgium, it is, alas!
the darkest day of our history. The terror of the Uhlan is already over
our land. Your father, the Baron, will, I know, endeavour to snatch you
from me, and marry you to the man whom I have so just a cause to hate--
enemy as he is of my own race, my name, my country. But, darling, I
refuse, in this hour of deadly peril, to remain inactive. I love you,
and, my darling, I know that you love me. Our dear country is
threatened by the invader, who intends to smash and to crush us, to
sweep our smiling, peaceful land with fire and sword; to stamp out our
national life, and to grind us beneath the millstones of a blasphemous
autocracy. And, as an officer of the Belgian army, my place is with my
regiment--to defend our country; to defend our innocent women--to defend
you, my own beloved."
Tears welled in her great dark eyes as she listened to his words, and he
bent until his lips pressed hers.
His argument was complete. How could she protest further? Her secret
lover was a fine, manly man--far more manly than any she had ever met in
her own select circle of that vain bejewelled society, where mammon was
god, and where finance daily juggled with the destiny of nations.
To rejoin his regiment was, after all, her lover's duty. She knew it in
her innermost consciousness. Yes, he was right. Though a lieutenant,
he could rejoin as _sous-officier_. The war-cloud, so black and
lowering, must burst within a few hours.
As a true daughter of Belgium she was at heart a patriot, even though,
in her own home, the only patriotism ever taught her had been the love
of self-esteem.
He was silent, not daring to utter further word; and she, looking into
his dark, thoughtful, serious eyes, in silence, wept.
Yet in the ears of both of them rang that single word of such awful and
such fatal significance:
War! _War_! WAR!