BOOK II

_THE OUTRAGE_

_ANNIE VIVANTI CHARTRES_

_NEW YORK : ALFRED A. KNOPF : 1918_

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY

A. VIVANTI CHARTRES

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

THE OUTRAGE

BOOK I

CHAPTER I

Chérie was ready first. She flung her striped bath-robe over her

shoulders and picked up Amour who was wriggling and barking at her pink

heels.

"_Au revoir dans l'eau_," she said to little Mireille and to the German

nursery governess, Frieda.

"Oh, Frieda, _vite, vite, dégrafez-moi_," cried Mireille, backing

towards the hard-faced young woman and indicating a jumble of knotted

tapes hanging down behind her.

"Speak English, please, both. This is our English day," said Frieda,

standing in her petticoat-bodice in front of the mirror and removing

what the girls called her "Wurst" from the top of her head. In the glass

she caught sight of Chérie making for the door and called her back

sharply. "Mademoiselle Chérie, you go not in the street without your

stockings and your hat."

"Nonsense, Frieda! In Westende every one goes to bathe like this," and

Chérie waved a bare shapely limb and flicked her pink toes at Amour, who

barked wildly at them.

"I do not care how every one goes. You go not," said Frieda Rothenstein,

hanging her sleek brown Wurst carefully on the mirror-stand.

"Then what have we come here for?" sulked Chérie, dropping Amour and

giving him a soft kick with her bare foot.

"We have come here," quoth Frieda, "not for marching our undressed legs

about the streets, but for the enjoyment both of the summer-freshness

and of the out-view." Whereupon Mireille gave a sudden shriek of

laughter and Amour bounded round her and barked.

Chérie crossed the room to the chair on which her walking clothes had

been hastily flung. "Won't sand-shoes do?"

"No. Sand-shoes and stockings," said Frieda. "And hat," she added,

glancing down at the comely bent head with its cascade of waving

red-brown locks.

Chérie hurriedly drew on her black stockings, glancing up occasionally

to smile at Mireille; and nothing could be sweeter than those shining

eyes seen through the veil of falling hair. Now she was ready, her

flapping _bergère_ hat crushed down on her careless curls, Amour hoisted

under her arm again, and with a nod of commiseration to Mireille she ran

down the narrow wooden staircase of Villa Esther, Madame Guillaume's

_appartements meublés_ and was down in the rue des Moulins with her

smiling face to the sea.

The street was a short one, half of it not yet built over, leading from

a new aeroplane-shed at the back to the wide asphalted promenade on the

sea-front. Chérie met some other bathers--a couple of men striding along

in their bathing suits, their bronzed limbs bare, a damp towel round

their necks, their wet hair plastered to their cheeks. They barely

glanced at the picturesque little figure in the brief red bathing-skirt

and flapping hat, for all along the sands--from Nieuport, twenty minutes

to the right, to Ostend half an hour to the left--there were hundreds of

just such charming school-girl figures darting about in the sunlight,

while all the fast and loose "daughters of joy" from Brussels, Namur,

and Spa, added their more poignant note of provocativeness to the blue

and gold beauty of the summer scene.

Chérie passed the bicycle shop and waved a friendly hand to Cyrille

Wibon, who was kneeling before his racing Petrolette and washing its

shining nose with the tenderness of a nurse and the pride of a father.

"Remember! the two bicycles at eleven, on the sands," cried Chérie in

Flemish, and Cyrille lifted a quick forefinger to his black hair, and

nodded. Chérie ran on, crossed the wide promenade, and skipped down the

shallow flight of steps leading to the sands, those vast sweeping sands

of Westende that begin and end in the wide, wild dunes. She dropped

Amour, who rolled over, righted himself, dug a few rapid holes with his

hind paws in the sand and then trotted off to lead his own wicked dog's

life with certain hated enemies of his--a supercilious leveret, a

scatter-brained Irish terrier, and a certain mean and shivering

black-and-tan, whose tastes and history would not bear investigation.

Chérie plunged through the quarter of a mile of dry, soft sand, into

which her feet sank at every step, and as she reached the smoother

surface that the outgoing tide left hard and level, she flung off her

bath-robe and her hat, her sand-shoes and her stockings; then she ran

out into the water.

Lithe and light she ran, skipping over the first shallow waves and on

until the water lapped her knees and the red skirt bulged out all round

her like a balloon--on she ran with little chilly gasps of delight,

raising her white arms above her head as the water rose and encircled

her with its cool, strong embrace. The sun cast a net of dancing

diamonds on the blue satin sea, and the girl felt the joy of life bound

within her like some wild, living thing. She joined her finger-tips and

dived into the dancing waters; then she emerged, pushing her wet hair

from her eyes with her wet hand. She swam on and on toward the azure

horizon, and dreamed of thus swimming on for ever and losing herself in

the blue beauty of the world.

An aeroplane passed above her with its angry whirr returning from

Blankenberghe to Nieuport, and she turned on her back and floated,

looking up at it and waving her small gleaming hand. She thought the

plane dipped suddenly as if it would fall upon her, and she watched it,

holding her breath for the pilot's safety till it was almost out of

sight. Then she turned and trod water awhile and blinked at the distant

shore for a sight of Mireille.

Yes, surely, there was the skimpy figure of Frieda, and beside it ran

and hopped the still skimpier figure of Mireille, whose thin legs had

only scampered through ten Aprils and whose treble voice cut the

distance with the shrill note of exceeding youth.

"Chéreee!... Chéreeee!... Come back. Come back and fetch me!"

So Chérie, with a sigh, turned and swam slowly landward.

Mireille came running out to meet her with little splashes and jumps and

shrieks, while Frieda stopped behind in a few inches of water and went

through a series of hygienic rites, first wetting her forehead, then her

chest, then her forehead again, and finally sitting down solemnly in the

water until she had counted a hundred. This concluded her bath, and she

went home to dress.

When, an hour later, she came down to the sands again neatly clothed in

her Reformkleid, with the Wurst reinstated high and dry on the top of

her otherwise damp head, she saw her two charges lying flat and

motionless in the sand, the broiling sunshine burning down on their

upturned faces and closed eyes. They were pretending to be dead; and

indeed, thought Frieda, as she saw them lying, so small and still on the

immensity of the sands, they looked like drowned morsels of humanity

tossed up by the sea.

Before Frieda could reach them, Cyrille, the bicycle teacher, passed

her--the monkey-man, as the girls called him--pedalling along on one

machine and guiding the other towards the two small recumbent figures.

They jumped up when they heard him, and by the time Frieda reached the

spot, Mireille was being hoisted on to a very rusty old machine, while

Chérie, a slim, scarlet figure, with auburn locks afloat and white limbs

gleaming, was skimming along in the distance on the smooth resilient

sands.

"I do not approve," panted Frieda, running alongside of the swaying

Mireille, while the monkey-man trotted behind and held the saddle,--"I

do not approve of this bicycle-riding in bathing costume."

"Oh, Frieda," gasped Mireille, "do stop scolding, you make me wobble--"

and with a sudden swerve the bicycle described a semicircle and ran

swiftly down into the sea.

Mireille was very angry with Frieda and with the bicycle and with the

monkey-man, who grinned with his very white teeth in his very dark face,

and hoisted her up again. Frieda soon tired of following them, and sat

down near an empty boat to read _Der Trompeter von Säkkingen_.

Säkkingen! As Frieda's eyes skimmed the neatly printed pages and

lingered on the woodcut of a church tower and a bridge, her soul went

back to the little town on the Rhine. For Frieda, like the famous

trumpeter, came from Säkkingen; her feet, in square German shoes, had

tottered and run and clattered and tripped at divers ages over its

famous covered bridge; she had leaned out of the small flower-filled

windows, and sent her girlish dreams floating down the sleepy waters of

the Rhine; she had passed Victor von Sheffel's small squat monument

every morning on her way to school, and every evening on her way home

she had looked up at the shuttered windows of the house that had been

his. Säkkingen!--with its clean white streets and its blue-and-white

Kaffee-Halle in the Square and its bakeries redolent of fresh _Kuchen_

and _Schnecken_.... Frieda raised eyes of rancour to the dancing North

Sea, to the smooth Belgian sands, to the distant silhouettes of Chérie,

Mireille, and the monkey-man, even to the bounding Amour and his

companions of iniquity. She hated it all. She hated them all. They were

all selfish and vulgar and flippant, with no poetry in their souls, and

no religion, and bad cooking.... Frieda shook her head bitterly: "_Das

Land das meine Sprache spricht_ ..." she murmured in nostalgic tones,

and sighed. Then she took up her book again and read what Hidigeigei,

tom-cat and philosopher, had to say about love and the Springtime.

Warum küssen sich die Menschen?

Warum meistens nur die Jungen?

Warum diese meist im Frühjahr?...

* * * * *

That evening Mireille opened the door to the postman and took two

letters from him. Then she went to the sitting-room where Frieda and

Chérie sat at their needlework; hiding one of the letters behind her

back she read out the superscription of the other with irritating

slowness:

"Mademoiselle--Chérie--Brandès--Villa--Esther--"

"Oh, give it to me!" cried Chérie, extending an impatient hand.

"It is from Loulou," said Mireille, giving up the letter and still

holding the other one behind her back.

"You may not call your mother Loulou," snapped Frieda. "I have never

heard of such a thing."

"She likes it," said Mireille. "Besides, Chérie calls her Loulou."

"Chérie is her sister-in-law, not her daughter," said Frieda; then

catching sight of the other letter in Mireille's hand: "Who is that

for?"

"Hochwohlgeborenes Fräulein--Frieda Rothenstein--" read Mireille, and

Frieda rose quickly and pulled the letter out of her hand. "Oh, Frieda,

you rude thing! Who is your letter from? It's on our letter-paper, and

is not from Loulou, and it is not from my father. Who calls you all that

twiddly-twaddly _hochwohlgeboren_ nonsense?"

Nobody answered. Both Fräulein and Chérie were reading their letters

with intent eyes. Mireille continued her monologue. "I believe it is

from Fritz. Fancy! Fritz, who is only papa's servant, writing to you! Do

you answer him? Fancy a _hochwohlgeboren_ getting letters from a

man-servant!"

Frieda did not deign to reply, nor did she raise her eyes from the

letter in her hand; yet as Mireille could see, it was only one line

long. Just four or five words. But Frieda sat staring at them as if they

had turned her to stone.

Now Chérie had finished reading the hastily scrawled page in her hand

and raised a face full of consternation.

"Frieda! Mireille! Do you know what has happened? We are to go home

tomorrow."

"Tomorrow!" exclaimed Mireille. "Why, papa said we were to stay here two

months, and we only arrived four days ago."

"Well, your mother writes that we are to go home at once. Do you hear,

Frieda?" But Frieda did not answer nor raise her eyes.

"But why--why?" cried Mireille. "Doesn't Loulou know we have arranged to

have your birthday party here, with Lucile and Jeannette and Cri-cri all

coming on purpose?"

"Yes, she knows," said Chérie, turning her sweet, perplexed eyes from

Mireille's disconcerted face to the impassive countenance of Frieda,

"but she says there is going to be war."

"War? What has that got to do with us?" exclaimed Mireille in injured

tones. "It really is too bad. Just as I had made up my mind that

tomorrow I would swim with both feet off the ground!..."

CHAPTER II

The next day's sun rose hot and angry. It was the 30th of July. By ten

o'clock Frieda had packed everything. Amour had been put into his

picnic-basket and his humped-up back coaxed and patted and finally

forcibly pressed down, and the lid shut over him. Then they awaited the

carriage ordered by telephone from Ostend the night before.

But no carriage arrived. At eleven Chérie ran across to the

telephone-office and spoke in her sternest tones to the livery stable in

Ostend.

"_Eh bien?_ Is this carriage coming? We ordered it for ten o'clock."

"No, Madame, it is not coming," replied a gruff voice from the other

end.

"Not coming?"

"No, Madame." Then in lower, almost confidential tones, "It has been

requisitioned."

"What is that? Then send another one," said Chérie. But Ostend had cut

off the communication and Chérie returned crestfallen and wondering to

the glum Frieda and the doleful Mireille sitting on the trunks in Madame

Guillaume's narrow hall.

"No carriage," she said.

"What?" exclaimed Frieda.

"Why not?" asked Mireille.

"I don't know; something is being done to it," Chérie said vaguely. "I

did not understand. Perhaps it is being re--re--covered, or something."

At noon Madame Guillaume found a porter for them who wheeled the luggage

on a hand-cart to the Westende tramway station. And the tramway carried

them and their luggage and Amour in his basket to Ostend, where another

man with a hand-cart was found to wheel the luggage and the basket to

the railway station.

They noticed at once that Ostend wore a strange and novel air. Crowds

filled the town, crowds that were not the customary sauntering

demi-mondaines and lounging viveurs. No; the streets were full of

hurrying people, of soldiers on foot and on horseback; long lines of

motor-cars, motor-cycles, carts and wagons blocked the roadways, and

behind them came peasants leading strings of unharnessed horses. Down

the rue Albert came, marching rapidly, a little band of Gardes Civiques

in their long coats and incongruous bowler-hats with straps under their

chins. Groups of officers, who had arrived a few days before for the

international tennis tournament, were assembled on the Avenue Leopold

and talked together in low, eager tones.

"What is the matter with everybody?" asked Mireille, as they hurried

through the Place St. Joseph and across the bridge after the man with

the luggage, who was already vanishing into the crowded station.

As if in answer to her question a couple of newspaper boys came

rushing past with shrill cries. "_Supplément ... supplément de

'l'Indépendance' ..., Mobilization Générale...._"

"Frieda, is there really going to be war?" asked Chérie, looking

anxiously at Frieda's sulky profile.

"Yes, I believe so," said Frieda. "Between Russia and Germany."

"Oh well; that is far away," said young Chérie, with a little laugh of

relief, and she ran to rescue the picnic-basket from the porter's

roughly swinging hand.

"Amour is whining," whispered Mireille, as they stood in the crush

waiting to pass the ticket-collector on the quai.

"Oh! he mustn't," said Chérie. "Officially he is sandwiches."

So Mireille thumped the basket with her small gloved hand and murmured,

"_Couche-toi, tais-toi, vilian scélérat_." And the official sandwiches

subsided in the basket and were silent.

They never had such a journey. The train was crowded to suffocation; the

whole world seemed to be going to Brussels; every few minutes their

train stopped to let other even more crowded trains dash past them

towards the capital.

"I have never seen so many soldiers," said Mireille. "I did not think

there were so many in the world."

Frieda Rothenstein smiled disdainfully with the corners of her mouth

turned down. "There are a few more than this in my country," she said.

"What? In Germany? But not such beautiful ones," cried Mireille, hanging

out of the window and waving her handkerchief as many others did to a

little company of Lancers cantering past on the winding road with lances

fixed and pennants fluttering.

Frieda glanced at them superciliously. "You should see our Uhlans," she

said. And added under her breath, "Who knows? Perhaps one day you may."

But the girls were not listening. The train was running into Brussels at

last. The journey had taken five hours instead of two.

An hour later they still sat in the motionless train in the Brussels

station.

"At this rate we shall never reach Bomal," said Chérie drearily, as they

watched train after train packed with soldiers leave the station before

theirs in the direction of Liège. Here all the world seemed to be

rushing out of Brussels towards the eastern frontier.

But all things end; and finally their train started too, panting and

puffing out of the Gare du Nord towards Louvain, Tirlemont, and Liège.

It was utterly dark by the time they reached Liège; and when they left

the Gare Guillemin the soft summer night had swathed the valley of the

Ourthe with tenebrous draperies. Little Mireille fell asleep with a pale

smudgy face resting against Frieda's arm. Chérie lay back in her corner

dozing and dreaming of Westende's blue sea; but Frieda's eyes were wide

open staring out into the darkness as the train rumbled in and out of

the tunnels, clattered over bridges following the gleaming blackness of

the river.

Where the Ourthe meets its younger brother the Aisne, the train slowed

down, trembled, hissed, and stopped.

"Bomal," announced the guard.

"Here we are! Mireille, wake up!" cried Chérie, looking out of the

window. Then she put Mireille's _bergère_ hat very crookedly on the

child's towzled head, while Frieda hurriedly collected the books, the

tennis-rackets and the parasols.

"Ah! there he is," and Chérie waved her hand out of the window to a tall

figure on the platform. "Claude! Claude! _Nous voici._"

Claude Brandès, a handsome man, fifteen years older than his sister

Chérie, opened the carriage door with an exclamation of relief. "Thank

goodness you are here," he said, lifting his dazed, weary little

daughter in his arms as if she were a baby and hoisting her on to his

shoulder. "Are you all right? Have you got everything? Come along!" And

he started down the platform, Chérie and Frieda trotting quickly after

him. "Mademoiselle," he said, turning to Frieda, "give the check for

your trunks to Fritz."

"_Oui, Monsieur le Docteur_," she replied, fumbling for it in her

hand-bag. Then she looked round for the man-servant, whom she had as yet

not caught sight of. Fritz Hollander ("Hollander by name and Hollander

by nationality," he always said of himself when making new

acquaintances) stepped out of the shadow and took the paper from

Frieda's hand. She murmured a greeting to him, but he did not reply nor

did he seem to notice her questioning glance. He turned on his heel, and

his massive figure was soon swallowed up in the shadows at the end of

the station.

The little party had just reached the exit and the train, with a parting

whistle, was curving away into the darkness, when Mireille suddenly

raised her face from her father's shoulder and gave a shriek. "Amour! We

have forgotten Amour!"

It was true. Amour, cramped and disgusted in his creaky luncheon basket,

was travelling away in the darkness to the heart of the Ardennes.

After the first moment of dismay everybody was cross with everybody

else.

"It's all his own fault," said Chérie, who was tired and hungry. "He

might have barked. He knew perfectly well that we were getting out."

"Haven't we taught him to pretend he is sandwiches when we're

travelling?" sobbed Mireille indignantly. "How can you be so unjust?"

"Never mind, Mirette," said her father; "don't cry. We will telegraph to

Marché to have him stopped and sent back. You will see him turn up safe

and tail-wagging in the morning."

And the telegram was sent.

As they walked through the silent, sleeping village of Bomal Chérie

inquired, "Why is Loulou not here? She might have come in the motor."

Her brother hesitated a moment. "I have sent away the car," he said.

"Sent it away? What for?" exclaimed Chérie.

"I have ... I have lent it," said Dr. Brandès.

"To whom?" inquired Mireille, trotting beside her father and hanging on

to his arm.

He gave a little laugh. "To the King," he said.

"Oh!" cried Mireille. "Not much of a car to lend to a king! Surely he

has better ones himself."

"We all give what we have in time of war," said her father. "Come, I

will carry you, my little bird," he said, and lifted her up again.

"What is the matter? Why are you so affectionate?" asked Mireille,

nestling comfortably in his arms and patting his broad back with her

small hand.

Chérie laughed and looked up adoringly at her big brother. "Is he not

always affectionate?" she asked.

"Not so dreadfully," replied Mireille, in her matter-of-fact tones; and

then they all three laughed.

Frieda, hurrying behind them in the dark with the books, the parasols,

and the tennis-rackets, hated them for their laughter.

* * * * *

Louise Brandès, a slim white figure in the moonlight, awaited them at

the door. She kissed Mireille and Chérie and greeted Frieda kindly; then

she made them all drink hot milk and sent them to bed.

"But I want to tell papa about how I can almost swim and nearly ride a

bicycle," said Mireille, sidling up to her father.

"You shall tell him tomorrow, my darling," said Louise.

But the morrow was not as they dreamed it.

When early next morning Frieda and the girls came down to the

breakfast-room they found Louise, still in her white dress of the

evening before, sitting on the sofa with red eyes and a pale face. In

answer to their anxious questioning she told them that Claude had been

called away. Two officers had come for him close upon midnight; he had

scarcely had time to pack a few things. He had taken his surgical

outfit; then they had hurried him away with short words and anxious

faces.

"But where--where has he gone to?" asked Chérie.

"I don't know," said her sister-in-law, and the tears gathered in her

dark eyes. "They said something about his being sent to a field

ambulance, or to ... to the Dépôt Central...."

"What is that?" asked Mireille; but as nobody knew, nobody answered.

Mariette the maid brought in the breakfast, followed by her mother,

Marie the cook; and they both had red eyes and were weeping. Marie said

that her two sons had come to the house at dawn to bid her and Mariette

good-bye; the eldest, Toinot, belonged to the 9th line regiment and had

been sent off to Stavelot; and Charles, the youngest, had volunteered

and was being sent off heaven knows where.

"Of course there is nothing to cry about," added Marie, with large round

tears rolling down her ruddy face. "There is no danger for our country.

But still--to see one's boys--going away like that--s-s-singing the

B-b-brabançonne--" she broke into sobs.

"Of course, my good Marie," echoed Louise, "there is nothing to cry

about...."

And then they all wept bitterly. Even Frieda, with her face in her

handkerchief, sobbed--on general principles, and also because

Weltschmerz gnawed at her treacherous, sentimental German heart.

At breakfast every one felt a little better. As nearly all the men had

left Bomal or were about to leave, it was a comfort to reflect that

Fritz Hollander, the doctor's confidential servant, being a Dutchman,

was not obliged to go. True, he was a somewhat sulky, taciturn person,

but he had been with them two years and, as Loulou remarked while she

poured out the coffee, one felt that one could trust him.

"I always trust people who are silent and look straight at you when you

speak," said the wise Louise, who was twenty-eight years old, and

admired Georges Ohnet.

"I don't like Fritz," remarked Mireille. "I hate the shape of his

head--and especially his ears," she added.

"Don't be silly," said Chérie.

Frieda, who was just dipping a fresh roll into her coffee, looked up.

"He has the ears God gave him," she remarked, with pinched and somewhat

tremulous lips.

Every one looked at her wonderingly, and she flushed scarlet as she bent

her head and dipped her roll into her cup again.

After breakfast Louise went to rest for a few hours; Frieda said she had

some letters to write, and the two girls went out to call on their

friends and make plans as to what they would do on Chérie's birthday,

the 4th of August.

They went to Madame Doré's house in the Place du Marché and found their

friends Cécile and Jeannette busy with their boy-scout brother, André;

they were sewing a band with S.M. on it, on the right sleeve of his

green shirt.

"What is S.M.?" inquired Mireille.

"That means Service Militaire," replied André proudly.

"Fancy!" exclaimed Mireille. "And you only fifteen!"

André passed his left hand carelessly over his fair hair. "Oh yes," he

said, with very superior nonchalance. "There are four thousand of us. We

shall have to take care of you women," he glanced with raised eyebrows

at the small, admiring Mireille, "now that the other men have gone."

"Keep your arm quiet," said Cécile, "or I shall prick you."

"Where is your father?" asked Chérie. "Has he left, too?"

"Yes," said André. "He has been called out for duty in the Garde

Civique. He is stationed on the Chaussée de Louvain, not far from

Brussels."

"Isn't it all exciting?" cried Jeannette, jumping up and down.

"But against whom are we going to fight?" asked Mireille.

"We don't know yet," declared André. "Perhaps against the French;

perhaps against the Germans."

"Perhaps against nobody," said Cécile, biting off the thread and patting

the neatly-sewn armlet on her brother's sleeve.

"Perhaps against nobody," echoed André, with a boyish touch of

ruefulness. "Nobody will dare to invade our land."

* * * * *

"Come, let us go into the garden," said Jeannette.

Thus it was in Belgium on the eve of her impending doom. Doubtless in

high places--in the Palais de la Nation and the Place Royale--there were

hearts filled with racking anxiety and feverish excitement; but

throughout the country there was merely a sense of resolute expectancy,

of not altogether unpleasant excitement. Every one knew that the

sacrosanct rights of the land would be respected, but it was just as

good, they said, to be ready for every event.

Nobody on that summer evening, from the remotest corner of Belgian

Luxembourg to the farthest homestead in Flanders, as they watched that

last July sun go down over the peaceful fields of grain, dreamed that

the Grey Wolves of War were already snarling at the gates, straining to

be let loose and overrun the world, panting to get to their work of

slaughter and destruction. No one dreamed that four days later massacre

and outrage and frenzied ferocity would rage through the shuddering

valleys of the Ardennes.

Thus while Chérie and Cécile, Jeannette and Mireille ran out into their

sunshiny garden, at that same hour, far away in the Wilhelmstrasse a man

with a grey beard stood on a balcony and spoke to a surging

crowd--promising blood to the wolves.

Thus while the four fair girls planned what they would do on the 4th of

August, on that balcony in Berlin their fate and the fate of Europe was

being pronounced.

"We shall invite Lucile, Cri-cri, and Verveine," said Chérie.

"We shall dash those aside who stand in our way," said the man on the

balcony.

"We shall dance," said Mireille.

"We shall grind our heel upon their necks," said von Bethmann-Hollweg.

And the Grey Wolves roared.

CHAPTER III

CHÉRIE'S DIARY

This is August the 1st. In three days I shall be eighteen. At eighteen

one is grown up; one pins up one's hair, and one may use perfume on

one's handkerchief and think of whom one is going to love.

The weather is very hot.

Cécile tells me that she saw Florian Audet ride past this morning; he

was at the head of his company of Lancers, and looked very straight and

handsome and stern; like Lohengrin, she said. I do not suppose he will

remember my birthday with all this excitement about manoeuvres and

mobilizing.

There is no news at all about Amour. We are very unhappy about him.

_Later._--Claude has written to say that he is ordered to Mons and that

there may be an invasion, and that whatever happens we are all to be

brave. We were not at all frightened until we read that; but now of

course we are terrified out of our wits. Every time the bell rings we

think it is the enemy and we scream. (Motto--to remember. It is better

never to tell any one to be brave because it makes them frightened.)

_August 2nd._--It is very hot again today. We wished we were in

Westende. How nice it was there, bicycling on the sand in one's bathing

dress! One day I rode all the way to the Yser and back. The Yser is a

pretty blue canal and a man with a boat ferries you across for ten

centimes to Nieuport. Of course that day I did not want to go to

Nieuport because I was in my bathing dress; besides, I had no pocket and

therefore no money.

I do not seem to write very important things in this diary; my brother

Claude gave it me and said I was not to fill it with futile nonsense.

But nothing really important ever happens.

There is no news of Amour.

Germany has declared war upon Russia; of course that is important, but I

do not write about it as it is more for newspapers than for a diary.

Louise says Germany is quite in the wrong, but as we are neutral we are

not to say so.

_Later._--We are going out for an excursion this afternoon as it is

Sunday. We are going with Frieda to Roche-à-Frêne, to ramble about in

the rocks, and Fritz is to follow us with a hamper of sandwiches, milk

and fruit. Loulou is coming too. It was Mireille who suggested it. She

said she thought we had been quite miserable enough. Mireille is very

intelligent and also pretty, except that her hair does not curl.

_Evening, late._--As nothing important has happened today--except one

thing--I will write in this diary about the excursion.

(The important thing is that I saw Florian, and that he says he will

come to my birthday party.) But now about the excursion. We were almost

cheerful after being so wretched and frightened and unhappy all the

morning about the war.

Even Loulou said that it was difficult to think that anything dreadful

would happen with such a bright sun shining and the sky so blue. Frieda

was sulky and silent, and kept dropping behind to be near Fritz. Loulou

said that perhaps if Germany does not behave properly all the Germans

will be sent away from Belgium. That means that Frieda would have to go.

We should not be sorry if she did. She is so changed of late. When we

speak to her she does not answer; when we laugh or say anything funny

she looks at us with round, staring eyes that Mireille says are like

those of a crazy cat that stalks about in the evening. I suggested that

perhaps Frieda is in love, as I am told that it is love that makes those

evening cats so crazy. It would be quite romantic and interesting if

Frieda were in love. Perhaps if Fritz Hollander were not just a

servant--Frieda is more of a _demoiselle de compagnie_--I should say

that she might be in love with him. But he never looks at her except to

scowl.

Today on our excursion I saw him do a funny thing. We came upon a spring

of water hidden among the rocks, and while the others went on I stayed

behind and clambered about, picking ferns. Fritz had also left the road,

and was coming along behind us. As he caught sight of the water he

stopped. He took a little notebook from his pocket, tore out a sheet,

and having looked round as if he feared some one might be watching him,

he scribbled something on the paper. Then he hurried back to the road

and stuck the paper on the trunk of a tree. I thought it must be a

love-letter or some message, so I slipped down the rocks and went to

look at it. There were only two words written on the scrap of paper:

"_Trinkwasser_--_rechts_."

I found that very strange. We never thought he knew German. I

wondered why he did it and was going to ask him, but when he saw me

he looked so cross that I did not dare. Later on, as we rambled about

in the wood we came upon another piece of paper stuck on a tree.

"_Trinkwasser_--_links_," was written on it. I told Loulou what I had

seen, and she went straight to Fritz and asked him what it meant. He

said he had done it for Frieda, so that she should know where to find

water.

"She is a thirsty soul," he added, and he laughed, showing a lot of

small, rabbity teeth. I do not think I have ever seen Fritz laugh all

the time he has been with us; he does not look very nice when he does.

But--as Frieda says of his ears--I suppose he has the laugh God gave

him.

The walk about Roche-à-Frêne was fantastic and beautiful.

After eating our sandwiches we lay on the grass and looked at the sky.

Perhaps I dozed, for suddenly I thought I was in Westende the day that

the aeroplane passed above me as I swam far out in the sea. I heard the

angry whirr of the engine, but this time it seemed to sound much louder

than any I had ever heard.

I opened my eyes and there it was, above us, flying very high and

looking for all the world like a beetle. It was all white except for a

panel of sky-blue painted across the centre of each wing. I noticed that

its wings were not straight as all the others I have seen, but sweeping

backwards like those of a bird. I called out to the others, and Mireille

said--

"How lovely it is! Like a white beetle with blue under its wings!"

Then an extraordinary thing happened. Fritz, who had been sitting some

distance off looking at a paper, leaped to his feet as if he had been

shot. He is short-sighted, and his glasses dropped off his nose into the

grass.

"My glasses, my glasses!" he cried out, as if he were quite off his

head. And Frieda actually ran to look for them, just as if she were his

servant. "What did she say?" Fritz was crying; "like a beetle? white?

with blue under its wings?" Frieda kept looking up and saying, "_Ja! ja!

ja!_" and Fritz was calling for his glasses. They both seemed demented.

The scarab-like aeroplane whirred out of sight.

Loulou had got up and was very pale. She made us go home at once and

never spoke all the way.

It was when we were passing through Suzaine that we met Florian. He was

on horseback. I did not think he looked like Lohengrin, but more like

Charles le Téméraire, or the Cid, el Campeador.

He told us--and his horse kept prancing and dancing about while he

spoke--that his regiment was encamped on the banks of the Meuse awaiting

orders. They might be sent to the frontier at any moment. But, unless

that happened, he said he would make a point of coming to see us on the

4th--even if he could only get an hour's leave. I reminded him that he

had never missed coming to see us on that day since the very first

birthday I had in Claude's house, when I was eight years old and my

father and mother had just died in Namur.

Loulou always tells me that I was like a little wild thing, shrinking

and trembling and weeping in my black dress, and afraid of everybody. On

that particular birthday I wept so much that my brother Claude had the

idea of sending for Florian--who is his godson--and asking him to try

and make friends with me. I remember Florian coming into the room--this

very room that I am writing in now--a boy of fourteen with short curly

hair and very clear steely-blue eyes. A little like André but

better-looking. He was what Loulou calls "_tres-crâne_." "_Bonjour_," he

said to me in his firm, clear voice. "My name is Florian. I hate girls."

I thought that rather a funny thing to say, so I stopped crying and gave

a little laugh. "Girls," Florian continued, looking at me with

disapproval, "are always either moping or giggling."

I stopped giggling at once; and I also left off moping so as not to be

hated by Florian.

All these thoughts passed through my head as I watched him bending down

and talking to Loulou very quickly and earnestly, while his horse was

dancing about sideways all over the road. He certainly looked like a

very young Charles le Téméraire or like the knight who went to waken la

Belle au Bois dormant.

_August 3rd._--We are very happy. Amour is safe! He is in the care of

the station-master at Marché and André is going very early tomorrow

morning to fetch him. André says that fetching dogs is not exactly a

Service Militaire, but it is in the line of a Scout's work to sally

forth in subservience to ladies' wishes, and obey their behests. He

said he would wear Mireille's colours, and she gave him the crumpled

Scotch ribbon from the bottom of her plait.

We have invited Lucile, Jeannette, Cécile and Cri-cri, to come tomorrow

evening. It will not be a real birthday party with dancing as it was

last year, because everything is uncomfortable and unsettled owing to

the Germans behaving so badly. However neutral one may be, one cannot

help being very disgusted with them. Even Frieda had a hang-dog air

today when Loulou read out loud that the Germans had actually sent a

note to our King proposing that he should let them march through our

country to get at France! Of course our King has said No. And we all

went out to the Place de l'Église to cheer for him this afternoon. It

was André who came to tell us that all Bomal was going.

It was beautiful and every one was very enthusiastic. The Bourgmestre

made a speech; then we sang la Brabançonne and the dear old Curé invoked

a blessing on our land and on our King. We all waved handkerchiefs and

some people wept. Marie and Mariette came too, but Frieda hid in the

house, being ashamed of her country, as she may well be.

Fritz was there, and Mariette remarked that he seemed to be the only

young man left in Bomal. It is true. All the others have either been

called to military service or have gone as volunteers. The Square today

was full of girls and children and quite old people.

I felt rather pleased that Fritz belongs to us. "A man in the house

gives one a sense of security," said Loulou the other day. I reminded

her of it as we were coming home, but she seemed worried and unhappy.

"Since your brother has left," she said, "Fritz is very much changed. He

does not behave like a servant; he never asks for my orders. Yesterday

at Roche-à-Frêne he was like a lunatic. And so was Frieda." Poor Loulou

looked very white as she said this, and added that she wished Claude

would come back.

There is certainly something curious about Fritz. This evening he

brought us the paper and stood looking at us while we opened it. I read

over Loulou's shoulder that the Germans had marched into the Grand-duchy

of Luxembourg and taken possession of the railways as if the place

belonged to them. When I raised my eyes I saw Fritz staring at us and he

had his hands in his pockets. He took them out when Loulou looked up and

spoke to him.

She said, "Fritz, this is dreadful news"; and he said, "Yes, madam," and

smiled that curious rabbity smile of his.

"Tell me," said Loulou, "did the master say anything to you when you saw

him to the train the other night?"

"Yes, madam," said Fritz.

"What--what did he say?" asked Loulou very anxiously.

Fritz waited a long time before he answered. "The master said"--and he

smiled that horrible smile again,--"the master said I was to protect you

in case _those dogs_ came here. That's what he said--those dogs! Those

dogs--" he repeated, glaring at Loulou and at me until we felt quite

strange and sick.

Little Mireille had just come into the room, and she asked somewhat

anxiously, "What dogs are you talking about?"

Fritz wheeled round on her with a savage look. "German dogs," said he.

"And they bite."

Nobody spoke for a moment. Then Loulou sighed. "Who would have conceived

it possible a month ago!" she murmured. "Why, even ten days ago, no one

dreamed of war."

Fritz took a step forward. "Some of us have been dreaming of war," he

said--and there was something in his tone that made Loulou look up at

him with startled eyes,--"dreaming of war, not for the past ten days,

but for the past ten years." He rolled his eyes at us; then he turned on

his heel and strode out of the room.

Loulou has written a long letter to Claude. But will it reach him?

CHAPTER IV

MIREILLE'S DIARY

This is an important day, August the 4th--Chérie's birthday. Loulou has

given her a gold watch and a sky-blue chiffon scarf; and I gave her a

box of chocolates--almost full!--and a rubber face that makes grimaces

according to how you squeeze it, and also a money-box in the shape of an

elephant that bobs its head when you put money in it and keeps on

bobbing for quite a long time afterwards; Cécile and Jeannette sent

roses, Lucile and Cri-cri a box of fondants, and Verveine Mellot, from

whom we never expected anything, sent a parasol. We had not invited

Verveine for tonight because she lives so far away, quite out of the

village; but we shall do so now because of the parasol.

We nearly had no party at all, Maman and Chérie being worried about the

Germans. But I cried, and they hate to see me cry, so they said that

just those five girls whom we see every day were not really a party at

all and they might come.

The great event of today has been that Amour has arrived in his basket,

with 14 francs to pay on him; we were very glad, and Chérie said it was

just like receiving a new dog as a birthday present. André was not able

to bring Amour himself because he had been sent on some other Service

Militaire in a great hurry on his motorcycle. The one drawback about

Amour has been that he took the rubber face in his mouth and would not

drop it and hid with it. We found it afterwards under the bed, but most

of the colours had been licked off and Mariette says it is permanently

distorted.

Mariette and Marie are going away today. They are taking only a few

things and are going to Liège, where they say they will feel safer.

Marie said we ought to go too, and Maman answered that if things went on

like this we certainly should. Maman has cried a good deal today; and

Frieda is shamming sick and has locked herself in her room. We have not

seen Fritz since last night. Altogether everything is very fearful and

exciting. Dinner is going to be like a picnic with nothing much to eat;

but there are cakes and sweets and little curly sandwiches, all

beautifully arranged with flowers, on the long table for this evening;

and we shall drink orangeade and grenadine. We were to have had ices as

well, but the pâtissier has joined the army and his wife has too many

children and is so miserable that she will not make ices. She told us

that her husband and other soldiers were digging ditches all round

Belgium to prevent the Germans from coming in.

Now I am going to dress. I shall wear pink, and Chérie will be all in

white like a bride. She will have her hair up for the first time, done

all in curls and whirligigs, to look like that cake Frieda calls

_Kugelhopf_.

Maman is going to make herself pretty too. She has promised not to think

of war or of the Germans until tomorrow morning because, as Chérie said,

one is eighteen only once in one's life. Now I come to think of it, one

is also eleven only once in one's life. I shall remember to say that

when my next birthday comes....

* * * * *

While Mireille sat in the little study writing her diary with exceeding

care, her head very much on one side and the tip of her tongue moving

slowly from one side of her half-open mouth to the other, the door was

opened and Fritz looked into the room. He shut the door again, and

having listened for a moment on the landing to the soft-murmuring voices

of Louise and Chérie, he went upstairs to the second floor and turned

the handle of Frieda's door. It was locked.

"Open the door," he said.

Frieda obeyed. It was not the first time that she opened her door to

Fritz.

"How loud you speak," she murmured, locking and bolting the door again,

"they may hear you."

"I don't care if they do," said Fritz, sitting down and lighting a

cigarette. "For two years I have played the servant. Tomorrow I shall be

the master."

"Tomorrow!" gasped Frieda. "Is it--as near as all that?"

"Nearer, perhaps," murmured Fritz looking out of the window at the

crimsoning western sky. The round red August sun had set, but the day

still lingered, as if loth to end. Where the sky was lightest it bore on

its breast the colourless crescent of the moon, like a pale wound by

which the day must die.

"Nearer, perhaps," repeated Fritz. "Be ready to leave."

* * * * *

That day the storm had already broken over Europe. The Grey Wolves were

pouring into Belgium from the south-east. At Dohain, at Francorchamps,

at Stavelot the grey line rolled in, wave on wave, and in their wake

came violence and death.

But the guns were not speaking yet. In the village of Bomal, a bare

twenty miles away, nobody knew of it; and Louise, fastening a rose in

Chérie's shining tresses said, "We will think of the war tomorrow."

Chérie kissed her and smiled. She smiled somewhat wistfully, and gazed

at her own lovely reflection in the mirror. The hot blue day had faded

into a gentle blue evening and Florian Audet had not kept his promise.

Perhaps, thought Chérie, his regiment has received orders to leave their

encampment on the Meuse; perhaps he has been sent to the frontier, but

still--and she sighed--she would have loved to have seen him and bidden

him good-bye....

But now little Mireille in her pink frock, looking like a blossom blown

from a peach-tree, came running in to call her. The door-bell had rung

and there was no one to answer it, since Marie and Mariette had gone and

Frieda was locked in her room and Fritz had vanished. So the two ran

lightly downstairs and opened the door to Lucile and Cri-cri, radiant in

pale blue muslin; and soon Cécile and Jeannette and Verveine arrived

too, and they all tripped into the drawing-room with light skirts

swinging and buoyant curls afloat.

Verveine sat at the piano and the others danced and sang.

Sur le pont

D'Avignon

On y danse

On y danse,

Sur le pont

D'Avignon

On y danse

Tout en rond!

The laughing treble voices could be heard through the windows, thrown

wide open to the mild evening air, and a young soldier on horseback

galloping through the quiet village heard the song before he pulled up

at Dr. Brandès's door. It was Florian Audet keeping his promise.

He slipped his bridle over the little iron gate and rang the bell.

Louise herself came down and opened the door to him.

"Ah, Florian! How glad Chérie will be!" she exclaimed. Then, as the

light from the hall beat full on his set face, "Why, how pale you are!"

she cried.

"I must speak to you," said Florian drawing her into the doctor's

surgery and shutting the door.

Louise felt her heart drop like a stone within her. "Is there worse

news?"

"The worst possible," said Florian. Then his eyes wandered over the

pretty, helpless figure before him. "Why are you dressed up like this?"

he asked harshly.

"Why, Florian ..." stammered Louise, "it is Chérie's birthday ...

and...."

Sur le pont

D'Avignon

On y danse

On y danse,

sang the girlish voices upstairs.

Florian turned away with a groan. "What shall I do?" he muttered. "What

will be the end of it?" Turning he saw Louise's stricken eyes gazing at

him, and he took her hand. "Marraine," he said, "you will be very

brave--it is best that I should tell you----"

"Yes, Florian," said Louise, and the colour ebbed slowly from her face,

leaving it as white as milk.

"The country is invaded at all points. There has been fighting at

Verviers...."

"At Verviers!" gasped Louise, and her large eyes were like inkblots in

her colourless face.

"Yes, and at Fleron."

There was silence. Then Louise spoke. "What--what will happen to us?

What does it mean ... to our country?"

"It means ruin and butchery," muttered Florian through his clenched

teeth; "it means violence, carnage, and devastation." Then he walked up

and down the room. "We are holding Visé," he muttered, "we are holding

it against Von Emmich's hell-hounds. And when we cannot hold it any

longer we will blow up the bridge on the Meuse."

Louise had sunk into a chair. For a few moments neither spoke. Then

Louise looked up.

"Will they--is it likely that they will come here?"

"They may," said Florian gravely, and as he looked at her and thought

of her alone in the house with Chérie and Mireille a spasm crossed his

face and tightened his lips.

"Will you be with us?" asked Louise, gazing at his stalwart figure and

strong clenched hands. "How long can you stay here?"

"Forty minutes," replied Florian bitterly.

Again there was silence. Then he said, "What about that

Dutchman--Claude's servant? Where is he?"

"Fritz?" said Louise, trembling. Then she told him what had taken place

the night before, and also the events at Roche-à-Frêne. Florian listened

to her with grim face. Then he strode up and down the room again in

silence.

"Well," he said at last, "you have promised to be brave. You must listen

to what I tell you and obey me."

He gave her brief, precise instructions. They were to pack their few

most valuable possessions at once, and leave for Bomal early next

morning for Brussels, via Marché and Namur--not Liège. "Remember," he

added, "not Liège." If no trains were available they must hire a

carriage, or a cart, or anything they could get. If no vehicle could be

found, then they must go on foot to Huy and thence to Namur. "Do you

understand?"

Yes, Louise understood.

Why not start now,--this evening? he suggested. They could go through

the wood to Tervagne----

Through the wood to Tervagne!... in the dark! Louise looked so terrified

that he did not insist. Besides, he reflected, there might be Uhlans

scouting in the woods tonight. No. They must leave at dawn. At three or

four o'clock in the morning. Was that understood?

Yes, it was understood.

"And--and----" asked Louise, "what are we to do with Frieda?"

"Don't trust her. But take her with you if she wants to go. Otherwise

leave her alone. Keep your doors locked."

"Yes."

"And have you got money?"

Yes, they had plenty of money.

"And now," said Florian, looking at his watch, which told him that

twenty of the forty minutes had passed, "I should like to see Chérie."

"I will call her," said Louise; then, at the door she turned to question

him with her fear-stricken eyes, "Shall I tell them--shall I tell the

children of the danger that threatens us?"

"Yes, you must tell them," said Florian. "And send them to their homes

at once."

"Oh, what will Mireille do?" gasped Louise. "What if she were to cry?

What if she were to fall ill with fear?"

"Little Mireille is braver than we are," he said, smiling and putting

his arm around her drooping shoulders. "Courage, _petite marraine_" and

he bent over her with fraternal tenderness and kissed her cheek.

He was left alone for a few moments; he heard the singing overhead stop

suddenly. Light fluttering footsteps came running down the stairs; the

door opened and Chérie stood on the threshold.

He caught his breath. Was this vision of beauty in the floating silken

draperies his little friend Chérie? How had she been transformed without

his noticing it from the awkward little school-girl he had known into

this enchanting flower-like loveliness? She noticed his wonder and stood

still, smiling and drawing a diaphanous scarf that floated mistily about

her somewhat closer over her pearly shoulders. Her limpid eyes gazed up

at him with blue and heavenly innocence.

A shudder passed through the man as he looked at her--a shudder of

prescient horror. Were not the wolves on the way already? Were not the

blood-drunken hordes already tearing and slashing their way towards this

virginal flower? Must he leave her to the mercy of their foul and

furious lust?

Again the fearful shudder passed through him. And still those limpid,

childish eyes gazed up at him and smiled.

"Chérie!" he said. "Chérie!" and with his hand he raised the delicate

face to his, and gazed into the azure wonder of her eyes.

She did not speak. Nor did her lashes flutter. She let him look deeply

into the translucent profundity of her soul.

"Chérie!" he said again. And no other word was spoken or needed.

* * * * *

The forty minutes had passed. There was a hurried leave-taking, a few

eager words of warning and admonition; then Florian had run downstairs,

spurs clinking, and swung himself into his saddle.

As he turned the prancing horse's head to the north he looked up at the

windows. Yes; they were all there, waving their hands, clustered

together, the blonde heads and the brown, the blue eyes and the dark

eyes following him.

"Remember," he cried to Louise, "remember--at dawn tomorrow! You will

leave tomorrow at dawn." And even as he spoke the unspeakable shudder

thrilled him again. Was it a foreboding of what the morrow might bring?

Was it a vision of what the tragic and sanguinary dawn had in store for

those he was leaving, alone in their defenceless beauty and youth?...

At the end of the street he turned again and saw that Chérie had run out

on to the terrace and stood white as a lily in the moonlight, gazing

after him.

He raised his hand high in the air in token of salute. Then he rode

away. He rode away into the night--away towards the thunderous guns of

Liège, the blood-drenched fields of Visé. And he carried with him that

vision of delicate loveliness. He had spoken no word of love to her nor

had his lips dared to touch hers. Her ethereal purity had strangely awed

and enthralled him. It seemed to him that the halo of her virginal youth

was around her like an armour of snow.

Thus he left her, fragile and sweet--white as a lily in a moonlit

garden.

He left her and rode away into the night.

CHAPTER V

The young girls in their muslin frocks and satin shoes sped homeward

like a flight of startled butterflies. Did they dream it, or was there

really, as they ran over the bridge, a booming, rumbling sound like

distant thunder? They stopped and listened. Yes.... There it was again,

the deep booming noise reverberating through the starlit night.

"_Jésus, Marie, St. Joseph, ayez pitié de nous_," whispered Jeannette,

and the others repeated the invocation. Then they ran over the bridge

and reached their homes.

Louise, Chérie, and Mireille were left alone in the deserted house.

Frieda's room, when they went upstairs to look for her, was empty. Her

clothes were gone. There were only a few of her books--"Deutscher

Dichterschatz," "Der Trompeter von Säkkingen," and Freiligrath's

"Ausgewählte Lieder"--lying on the table; and the plaster bust of Mozart

was still in its place on the mantelpiece.

"She must have slipped out while we were talking with Florian," said

Chérie, turning a pale face to Loulou, who gazed in stupefaction round

the vacant room.

"She was a snake," said Mireille, slipping her hand through her mother's

arm and keeping very close to her. "And so was Fritz."

At the mention of Fritz, Louise shivered. "I do not suppose Fritz has

come back," she said, dropping her voice and glancing through the open

window at the darkened outbuilding across the courtyard. "He is surely

not in his room."

There was a moment's silence, and they all looked at those lightless

windows over the garage. The thought of Fritz lurking there, waiting

perhaps in the dark to do some fiendish work, was very disquieting.

"We must go and look," said Chérie. So holding each other very close and

carrying a lantern high above their heads they went across the quiet

courtyard up the creaky wooden stairs to Fritz's room.

Fritz was not there. But his trunk was in its place and all his

belongings were scattered about.

"It looks as if he intended to come back," said Chérie; and they

trembled at the thought. Then they went downstairs across the yard and

into the house again. They were careful to slam the heavy front door

which thus locked itself; but when they tried to push the bolt they

found it had been taken away. It was at this moment that the distant

booming sound fell also on their ears.

"What was that?" asked Mireille.

Chérie put her arm round the child. "Nothing," she said. "Let us go up

and pack our things." And as Louise still stood like a statue staring at

the door with the lantern in her hand she cried, "Loulou, go up to your

room and collect what you will take with you in the morning."

And Loulou slowly, walking like a somnambulist, obeyed.

How difficult to choose, from all the things we live among, just what we

can take away in our two hands! How these inanimate things grow round

the heart and become through the years an integral part of one's life!

What? Must one take only money and a few jewels, and not this picture?

Not these letters? Not this precious gift from one who is dead? Not the

massive silver that has been ours for generations? Not the veil one was

married in? Not the little torn prayer-book of one's first communion?

Not one's father's campaign-medals, or the packet of documents that

prove who we are and what is ours?

What! And the bird-cage with the fluffy canaries asleep in it? Are they

to be left to die? And the dog----

"Of course we must take Amour," said Chérie.

"Of course," said Loulou, going through the rooms like a wandering

spirit, picking things up and putting them down in a bewildered manner.

A clock struck eleven. Mireille, still in her pink frock, had clambered

upon her mother's bed and was nearly asleep.

_Boom!_ Again that low, long sound, rumbling and grumbling and dying

away.

"It is nearer," breathed Louise. And even while she said it the sound

was repeated, and it was nearer indeed and deeper, and the windows

shook. Mireille sat up with wide, shining eyes.

"Is that a thunderstorm?... Or the Germans?"

"It is our guns firing to keep the Germans away," said Louise, bending

over her and kissing her. "Try to sleep for an hour, my darling."

Mireille lay back with her silken hair tossed on the pillow.

"Are the Germans trying to come here?" she asked.

There was silence. Then Chérie said, "I don't think so," and Louise

added, "Of course not."

"But--might they want to come?" insisted Mireille, blinking to keep her

eyes open.

"Why should they come here?" said her mother. "What would they want in

this little out-of-the-way village?"

"What indeed?" said Chérie.

Mireille shut her eyes and thought about the Germans. She knew a great

deal about them. Frieda had taught her--with the aid of a weekly paper

from Munich called _Fliegende Blätter_--all the characteristics of the

nation. The Germans, Mireille had gathered, were divided into two

categories--Professors and Lieutenants. The Professors were old men,

bald and funny; the Lieutenants were young men, aristocratic and

beautiful. The Professors were so absent-minded that they never knew

where they were, and the Lieutenants were so fascinating that girls

fainted away and went into consumption for love of them. Frieda admitted

that there were a few other Germans--poets, who were mostly dead; and

housewives, who made jam; and waiters, who were sent to England. But

obviously the Germans that had got into Belgium this evening were the

Lieutenants and the Professors. Mireille nestled into her pillow and

went to sleep. She dreamed that they had arrived and were very amiable

and much impressed by her pink dress.

She was awakened by a deafening roar, a noise of splintering wood and

falling glass. With a cry of terror she started up; then a flash blinded

her, another roar filled the air, and it seemed as if the world were

crashing to pieces.

"Mireille!" Her mother's arms were around her and Chérie had rushed in

from her room with an ashen face.

"Loulou, let us go at once--let us go to the Bourgmestre or to the Curé!

We cannot stay here alone!"

"Yes ... let us go ..." stammered Louise. "But who will carry our

things?"

"What things? We take no things. We are fugitives, Loulou! Fugitives!...

Quickly--quickly. Take your money and your jewels--nothing else."

"Quickly, quickly," echoed the whimpering Mireille.

"If we are fugitives," sobbed Louise, looking down at her floating

chiffon gown, "we cannot go out into the world dressed like this."

"We cannot stop to change our clothes ... we must take our cloaks and

dark dresses with us," cried Chérie. "Only make haste, make haste!"

But Louise seemed paralysed with fear. "They will come, they will come,"

she gasped, gazing at the shattered window; the throbbing darkness

beyond seemed to mutter the words Florian had spoken: "Outrage,

violence, and slaughter ... outrage, violence, and slaughter...."

Suddenly a sheaf of flame rose up into the sky, illuminating the room in

which they stood with a fantastic yellow glare. Then a terrific

explosion shook the foundations of the house.

Louise catching Mireille in her arms stumbled down the stairs followed

by Chérie. They knew not where they were going. Another explosion roared

and shattered the coloured staircase window above them to atoms, driving

them gasping and panic-stricken into the entrance-room.

Did hours or moments pass? They never knew.

Now there were voices, loud hoarse voices, in the street; short guttural

commands and a clatter of hoofs, a clanking of sabres and spurred heels.

"Let me look--let me look out of the window," gasped Chérie, tearing

herself free from Louise's convulsive grasp. She stumbled to the window,

then turned a haggard face: "They are here."

Mireille shrieked, but her piping voice was drowned by the noise

outside.

"They will murder us," sobbed Louise.

"Don't cry! don't cry," wailed Chérie. "The gate is open but the door is

locked. They may not be able to get in." But even as she spoke she knew

the fallacy of that hope.

"Wait," she whispered. "They are trying the door." Louise had followed

her to the window, clutching at the curtains lest she should fall.

"Look, some one is trying to open the door...."

Louise bent forward and looked out. "It is Fritz...." she shrieked, and

staggered back. "Fritz! He has opened the door to them!"

Now there was the tramp of many feet on the stairs, and loud voices and

the clanking of spurs and sword.

As if the imminence of their fate had suddenly invested her with new

strength and dignity, Louise stood up, tall and tragic, between the two

trembling girls. She crossed herself slowly and devoutly; slowly and

devoutly she traced the sign of the cross on Chérie's forehead and on

Mireille's. Then with arms entwined they stood motionless. They were

ready to die.

The door was kicked open; military figures in grey uniforms thronged the

passage and crowded noisily forward.

They stopped as they caught sight of the three entwined figures, and

there was an instant's silence; then an officer--a lean man with a

grizzled moustache--stepped forward into the room.

Those behind him drew up stiff and straight on the threshhold, evidently

awaiting orders.

"_Tiens, tiens, tiens!_" said the officer, looking the three feminine

figures up and down, from glossy head to dainty feet, and his grey eyes

twinkled. "A charming tableau. You have made yourselves beautiful to

receive us?" His French was perfect; his tone, though slightly

contemptuous, was neither rude nor unkind; his eyes were intelligent and

humorous. He did not look like a hell-hound. He did not evoke the idea

of violence, outrage, and slaughter.

In a sudden reaction from the supreme tension of terror a wave of

faintness overwhelmed Louise. Her soul seemed to melt away. With a

mighty throb of thankfulness and relief she felt the refluent blood

stream to her heart once more.

The man had turned to the soldiers behind him--two seemed to be junior

officers, the other six were men--and gave them a short, sharp order in

German. They drew themselves up and saluted. The two younger officers

stepped forward and stood beside him.

One of them--a tall young man with very light eyes--held a paper in his

hand, and at the request of his superior officer read it aloud. The

older man while he listened seemed to be surveying the apartment,

looking round first at one door, then at the other, then at the upper

floors.

Chérie and Mireille were amazed. They who had learnt German with Frieda

understood what was being read.

It was a brief, precise description of the house and its occupants. This

was the house of Claude Leopold Brandès, doctor, and reserve officer,

age thirty-eight, married. His wife, his child--a daughter--and his

sister lived with him. There were twelve rooms, three attics, a

basement; kitchen, scullery, wash-house, harness-room, stable. There was

a landaulet, a small motor-car, and two horses; all requisitioned.

"_Das ist alles, Herr Kapitän._"

"No other adult males?" asked the Herr Kapitän.

No. Nothing but these women.

Where had the man Brandès gone to?

He had left on the night of July 31st.

For the frontier?

No, for the capital, it was believed. "But," added the young officer

casting a fleeting glance at the three women, "that will be easy to

ascertain."

"Any one of ours here?" asked the older man.

"Yes. A certain Fritz Müller, of Löhrrach."

Chérie quivered and tightened her grasp on Louise's hand.

"Where is this Fritz Müller?" asked the captain, looking about him.

"Downstairs," answered the lieutenant. "He was the man who opened the

door for us."

"Well, put him in charge of the billets and see that he provides for

twenty men," said the captain. "Now, as for us----" he took the paper

from the other's hand. He turned it round and looked at the plan of the

house roughly drawn on the back of the sheet. "Let me see ... three

rooms on this floor ... four on the next ... Glotz?" to the other and

youngest officer standing silent and erect before him. "Come with me,

Glotz. And bring an orderly with you." Then he glanced at Louise and

Chérie. "Von Wedel"--the light-eyed officer stood at attention--"you

stay here." The captain turned on his heel and marched up the stairs,

followed by the second lieutenant whom he had called Glotz and two of

the soldiers. The other four stood in the hall drawn up in a row, stiff

and motionless as automatons.

Von Wedel shut the door in their faces; then he turned his gaze on the

three women left in his charge. He moved slowly, deliberately towards

them and they backed away from him, still holding each other's hands and

looking up at him with starry, startled eyes. He was very tall and

broad, and towered above them. He gazed at them a long time, his very

light eyes roving from Louise to Chérie, from Chérie to Mireille and

back to Chérie again.

"Well, turtle-doves," he said, at last, and laughed, "did you expect

us?" The three pairs of startled eyes still looked up at him. "Is it

really in our honour that you put on all this finery?"

He moved a step nearer, and again all three drew back. "Well, why don't

you answer?"

Louise stepped a little in front of the other two as if to shield them;

then she spoke in low and quavering tones--

"Monsieur.... I hope ... that you and your friends ... will be good

enough to leave this house very soon.... We are alone here----"

"Permit us then to keep you company," said Von Wedel, and added, in a

tone of amiable interrogation, "Your husband is not here?"

"No," said Louise, and at the thought of Claude her underlip trembled;

she looked like a child who is about to cry.

"Too bad," said Von Wedel, putting one foot in its muddy boot on a chair

and leaning forward with his elbow resting on his upraised knee. "Too

bad. Well; we must await his return."

"But," stammered Louise, "he will not return tonight."

"Won't he?" His insolent light eyes that had been fixed on Chérie during

this conversation now wandered with effrontery over the charming

trepidant figure of Louise. "Why, what an ungallant husband to be sure!

And may I ask where he has gone to?" He tossed the question at her

carelessly while he drew a gold coroneted cigarette-case from his pocket

and took from it the solitary cigarette it contained. "Your man told me

he had been ordered to Namur."

"No--to Mons," said Louise.

"Ah yes, Mons. Interesting town"--he tapped one end of his cigarette on

the palm of his hand, "fine old Cathedral of St. Waudru ... four railway

lines ... yes. Did he go alone?"

Mireille pinched her mother's arm.

"Don't say," she whispered.

The officer heard it and laughed. He took hold of the child's arm and

drew her gently away from her mother's side. "_Na! sieh doch einmal!_"

he said. "Are we not sly? Are we not knowing? Are we not diplomatic?

Eh?" Holding her by her small arm he backed her away across the room,

then giving her a little push he left her and turned his attention to

the other two again. Louise had turned deathly pale, but Mireille,

unharmed and undaunted, signalled to her from the other end of the room,

signifying defiance by shrugging her shoulders and sticking her tongue

out at the spruce, straight back of the enemy.

He now stared at Chérie again, and under his insistent insolent gaze she

trembled like an aspen leaf.

"Why do you tremble?" he asked. "Are you afraid of me?"

"Yes," murmured the girl, drooping her head.

He laughed. "Why? I'm not a wild beast, am I? Do I look like a wild

beast?" And he moved a step nearer.

Louise stepped in front of Chérie. "My sister-in-law is very young," she

said, "and is not used to the attention of strangers."

"My good woman," replied Von Wedel with easy insolence, "go and find

some cigarettes for me." And as Louise stared at him with an air of

dazed stupefaction he spoke a little louder. "Cigarettes, I said. Surely

in your husband's study you will find some. Preferably Turkish. Quick,

my good soul. _Eins, zwei, drei_--go."

After a moment's hesitation Louise turned and left the room; Mireille

ran after her. Chérie darted forward to follow them, but Von Wedel took

one long stride and caught her by the arm. "_Halt, halt!_" he said,

laughing. "You stay here, my little turtle-dove, and talk to me."

The girl flushed and paled and trembled. "What a shy dove!" he said,

bending over her. "What is your name?"

"Chérie," she murmured almost inaudibly.

"What? _'Chérie'?_" he laughed. "Did you say that to me? The same to

you, Herzchen!" He sat down on a corner of the table quite close to her.

"Now tell me what you are afraid of. And whom you are afraid of.... Is

it of Captain Fischer? Or of me? Or of the soldiers?"

"Of everybody," stammered Chérie.

"Why, we are such good people," he said, blowing the cigarette-smoke in

a long whiff before him, then throwing the cigarette on the carpet and

stamping it out with his foot. "We would not hurt a cat--nor a dog," he

added, catching sight of Amour, who came hopping down the stairs limping

and yelping, "let alone such an adorable little angel as you."

The dog came whining piteously and crouched at Chérie's feet; she bent

down and lifted him up in her arms. He was evidently hurt. Von Wedel

said "Good dog!" and attempted to pat him, but Amour gave a long, low

growl and the officer quickly withdrew his hand.

Louise reappeared bringing boxes of cigars and cigarettes, which she

placed on the table. Mireille, who followed her, caught sight of Amour

in Chérie's arms and heard him whine.

"What have you done to him?" she said, turning fiercely on Von Wedel.

He laughed. "Well, well, what a little vixen!" he said. Then he added,

"You can take the dog away. I don't like dogs." Chérie moved at once

towards the staircase, but he stopped her again. "No, no; give the dog

to the vixen. You stay here."

Chérie obeyed, shrinking away from him to Louise's side, while Mireille

ran upstairs with Amour and took him to Chérie's room. She kissed him on

his rough black head and patted his poor paws and put him down on a

cushion in a corner. Then she ran down again to see what was going on.

Amour left alone whined and howled in hideous long-drawn tones of

indignation and suffering. When a few minutes later Captain Fischer,

followed by Lieutenant Glotz and the two soldiers on his round of

inspection, came downstairs, he stopped on the landing.

"What is that noise? Who is crying?" he asked.

"The dog, sir," said Glotz, "whom you kicked downstairs before."

"Hideous sound!" said Captain Fischer; "stop it."

And one of the soldiers went in and stopped it.

Captain Fischer went downstairs, followed by Glotz. When they entered

the room Von Wedel turned away from Chérie and stood at attention.

Outside the boom of the cannon had ceased, but there were loud bursts of

firing in the distance, sudden volleys which ceased as abruptly as they

began. The three officers seemed to pay no heed to these sounds; they

stood speaking together, the captain issuing brief orders, Von Wedel

asking a question or two, and Glotz saying "_Ja, Herr Kapitän--ja, Herr

Leutnant_" at brief intervals, like a mechanical toy. Glotz was

round-faced and solemn. He never once looked at Louise, Chérie, or

Mireille, who stood in a corner of the room watching the men with

anxious eyes.

"What are they saying?" asked Louise in an undertone.

Chérie listened. So far as she could understand they were making

arrangements as to where they should sleep.

"Eight men are to stay here," she translated in a whisper, "four in the

attics and four downstairs. They themselves are going somewhere

else--wait! They are talking of the Cheval Blanc--wait ... wait ...

they are saying"--and her eyes dilated--"that they can't go there

because the inn is burning...."

At this point Von Wedel gave a loud laugh and Fischer smiled. Only

Glotz's chubby countenance remained solemn, like the face of an anxious

baby.

"What are they saying now?" asked Louise.

Mireille whispered, "They are talking about the _Pfarrer_--that means

the priest."

"About Monsieur le Curé? What are they saying about him?"

At this point Von Wedel laughed again. "_Der alte Esel!... Seine eigene

Schuld...._"

"What is that? what is that?" asked Louise.

"The old donkey ... his own fault," translated Mireille.

"And now what?" The captain was bending down and looking at his boots.

Chérie interpreted. "He says he will be glad to get the mud and blood

off his feet...."

"Mud and blood?" echoed Louise in a horrified whisper. "Surely not."

Mireille nodded. "_Koth und Blut_--that is what he said."

A wave of sickness came over Louise; she felt the ground heave under

her.

Now Von Wedel was helping the captain to take off his tunic, drawing the

left sleeve down with great precaution.

"He says he is wounded," whispered Mireille.

"But he says it is nothing; that his arm is only grazed," supplemented

Chérie.

The coat was off and Captain Fischer was carefully turning up his

shirt-sleeve. Yes; the forearm was grazed and bleeding.

The captain examined it very carefully, and so did Von Wedel, bending

over it and shaking his head with an air of great concern. The captain

looked across at Louise and beckoned to her with his finger.

"Come here, _Gnädige_, please;" and as she approached him he said, "Your

husband is a doctor, is he not? Then you will have some antiseptic in

the house. Lysoform? Sublimate? Have you?" Louise nodded assent. "Bring

me some," he said. "And a little boiled water if you have it."

Louise turned without a word and left the room.

"She is very stupid," said Von Wedel looking after her.

"She is very pretty," said the captain.

Louise passed the soldiers who stood in the hall talking together in low

voices. She went down the stairs feeling dizzy and bewildered. Would

these men stay in the house all night? Would they sleep and eat here?

Would they order her about, and ogle Chérie, and bully little Mireille?

How long would they stay, she wondered. A week? a month?... She entered

her husband's surgery and turned on the light. The sight of his room,

of his chair, of his book, open on the desk as he had left it, seemed to

wring her heart in a vice of pain. "Claude! Claude!" she sobbed. "Come

back! Come back and take care of us!"

But Claude was far away.

She found the little blue phial of pastilles of corrosive sublimate; she

poured some distilled water into a small basin and found cotton and a

packet of lint for a bandage. Then she went upstairs again, past the

soldiers in grey, and entered the sitting-room. It was empty.

Where had they all gone to? Where had they taken Chérie and Mireille?

She stumbled blindly up the short flight of stairs leading to the

drawing-room. There she heard their voices, and went in.

Captain Fischer was reclining on the sofa, still in his shirt-sleeves,

with his boots off. Von Wedel and Glotz were at the flower-adorned

supper-table prepared for Chérie's birthday party, and were eating

sandwiches in large mouthfuls. Their grey helmets were on the piano;

their belts on a chair. Chérie stood cowering in a corner near the door.

"Where is Mireille?" cried Louise; and Chérie replied, "She is all

right. He"--indicating the captain on the sofa--"has sent her to fetch

him some slippers." Her lips quivered. "I wanted to go with her but they

would not let me."

"I feel as if we were in a dream," murmured Louise.

"Ah," cried the man on the sofa, catching sight of Louise, "here is my

good Samaritan." He crossed the room in his stockinged feet and took the

basin out of her hands. He looked round a moment uncertain where to put

it; then he drew up a satin chair and placed the basin of water on it.

"_Gut_," he said. "And what have we here?" He took the little bottle

from her hand. "'Perchlor. of mercury, 1.0 gramme.' That is right." He

shook one of the little pink tablets out on his palm and dropped it in

the water. "Now, charming lady, will you be a sister of mercy to a poor

wounded man?" He bared his arm and sat down on the sofa again, making

room for her beside him; but she stood in front of him, and dipping some

pieces of cotton in the water she bathed the injured arm.

The door opened and Mireille came in with a pair of her father's

slippers in her hand. When she saw her mother stooping over the man's

arm her small face flushed scarlet. She flung the slippers down and,

running to the corner where Chérie was standing, she hid her face on

Chérie's arm.

"_Ei, ei, the_ vixen!" laughed Von Wedel, taking another sandwich. "Now

we want something to drink. Not these syrups," he added, pushing the

grenadine and orangeade aside. "Let us have some champagne. Eh, Glotz?

What do you say to that?"

"And some brandy," said Fischer. "This scratch is deucedly painful."

There was a moment's silence. Then Chérie, taking a step towards the

door, said, "I will fetch some brandy."

"I'll come too," said Mireille.

"No, no, no, no," cried Von Wedel, catching hold of them each by one

arm. "You two want to run away. I know your tricks! No. The vixen stays

here; and the angel"--bending to gaze into Chérie's face--"comes with me

and shows me where the brandy is kept."

"She shan't! she shan't!" screamed Mireille, clinging to Chérie's arm.

"_Donner und Blitz!_" exclaimed Von Wedel, "what a little demon. You

just catch hold of her, Glotz, and keep her quiet."

Glotz, who had been sitting at the table eating silently, rose and dried

his mouth on one of the beflowered tissue-paper serviettes. "I know

where the cellar is," said he, "I saw it on my round with the Herr

Kapitän. If the Herr Kapitän permits, I will fetch the brandy myself."

And he left the room quickly, paying no heed to Von Wedel's murmured

remark that he was a confounded interfering head of a sheep.

Louise had burst into tears when Von Wedel had told Glotz to hold

Mireille, and although the captain patted her hand and told her not to

cry she went on weeping bitterly while she bandaged his arm.

Von Wedel looked at her a moment and then turned to Chérie. "What

relation are you to that weeping Niobe? I forget."

"Sister-in-law," murmured Chérie inaudibly.

"What? Speak louder. I can't hear," said Von Wedel, seating himself on a

corner of the table and lighting one of Dr. Brandès's cigars.

"Sister-in-law," repeated Chérie faintly.

"Sister-in-law? Good." He puffed at the cigar. "And I'll be your

brother-in-law, shall I? Ah, here is the wine!" he exclaimed as the door

was thrown open.

But it was not the wine. It was another officer, dressed like the others

in a grey uniform bereft of all insignia; he was very red and covered

with dust and mud. He saluted the captain and nodded to the lieutenant,

loosened his belt and flung his grey helmet on the piano where the

others lay.

"Ah, Feldmann," cried Captain Fischer. "What have you done?"

"My duty," said the new-comer in a curious hoarse voice.

"_Der Pfarrer?_" ... questioned Von Wedel.

The man nodded and made a grimace. "And that idiot of a scout-boy too.

It was he who fired at you," he said turning to Fischer.

"It was not," said the captain. "It was an old man, from a window. Near

the church."

"Oh well, I didn't see any old man," said Captain Feldmann. "And these

civilians must be taught their lesson.... What have we here?" he added,

surveying the table. "I am famished." And he took two or three

sandwiches, placed them one on the other and ate them. "Beastly hole,

this," he remarked, with his mouth full. "We needn't have come here at

all."

"Oh yes, we need," declared Fischer very sternly.

"Well, we won't discuss that," said Feldmann. "And anyhow we are going

on in the morning. I should like something to drink."

Chérie had flushed to the roots of her hair. She had grasped the one

thing only--they were going on in the morning! At any cost she must tell

Louise that wonderful news. And she did so rapidly, in low tones, in

Flemish.

Louise, who had finished bandaging the officer's wounded arm, burst into

tears again; this time they were tears of joy.

"What are these women?" inquired Feldmann, glancing around with his

mouth full. "They look like ballet-dancers."

"That one," said Von Wedel, with a coarse laugh, pointing at Louise,

"is the weeping Niobe; and that" indicating Mireille--"is the demon

child. And this"--taking Chérie's wrist and drawing her towards him--"is

my sister-in-law and an angel."

"And this is Veuve Clicquot '85," said Glotz entering with some bottles

in his hand and stepping as if casually between Chérie and her

tormentor.

The men turned all their attention to the wines, and sent Glotz to the

cellar three or four times to fetch some more.

They wanted Martel; they wanted Kirsch; they wanted Pernod. Then they

wanted more champagne. Then they wanted more sandwiches, which Louise

went to make. Then they wanted coffee, which Feldmann insisted upon

making himself on a spirit-lamp. They set fire to the tablecloth and to

the tissue-paper serviettes, which they threw down and stamped out on

the carpet.

Von Wedel sat down at the piano and sang "Traum durch die Dämmerung,"

and Feldmann wailed a chorus. Then Feldmann recited a poem. He was very

tipsy and had to put one arm around Glotz's neck and lean heavily on

Glotz's shoulder in order to be able to stand up and gesticulate.

"Liebe Mutter, der Mann mit dem Kocks ist da!"

"Schweig still, mein Junge, das weiss ich ja.

"Hab'ich kein Geld, hast du kein Geld,

"Wer hat denn den Mann mit dem Kocks bestellt?"

Great laughter and applause from Captain Fischer and Von Wedel greeted

this; only Glotz remained impassive; with Feldmann's arm around his

neck, his chubby countenance unmoved, his expression vacant.

For some time they paid no heed to the three women clustered together in

the furthest corner of the room, except to stretch out a detaining hand

whenever they tried to move towards the door.

"No," declared Von Wedel, leering at them through his light, vague eyes.

"No. You don't leave this room. Not all three together. Only one at a

time; then we're sure she'll come back."

So they clung together with pale bewildered faces, whispering to each

other every now and then the comforting words, "They will go away in the

morning."

But the morning was not yet.

When Captain Fischer suggested that it was time to go to bed, the others

called him an old screech-owl; whereupon Captain Fischer explained to

them at great length that military discipline did not permit them to

call him a screech-owl. And he called Louise to witness that he had been

called a screech-owl.

But now Feldmann was singing "Gaudeamus igitur," so the captain joined

in too.

"Come along," said Von Wedel, lurching towards Chérie with two glasses

in his hand; "come, turtle-dove, _Brüdershaft trinken_!" He forced one

of the glasses into her hand. "You must drink the pledge of brotherhood

with us. Like this"--and he made her stand face to face with him,

pushing his left arm through hers and raising his glass in his right

hand.

Chérie shrank back, seeking refuge behind Louise. But he dragged her

forward and caught her by the arm again.

"Obedience!" he roared, scowling at her. "Now sing; '_Lebe, liebe,

trinke, schwärme_'--and when I get to the words '_froh mit mir_,' we

clink our glasses together."

"Please not! please not!" implored Chérie.

"_Froh mit mir_"--repeated he, glaring at her through his heavy lids.

And he sang:

Lebe, liebe, trinke schwärme

Und erfreue dich mit mir.

Härme dich wenn ich mich härme

Und sei weider

froh

mit

mir!

At the last three words he clinked his glass against Chérie's. "Drink!"

he commanded in a terrible voice. "If you do not drink, it is an insult

which must be punished."

With a sob Chérie raised the glass to her lips.

Louise was wringing her hands. "The brute! the brute!" she cried, while

Mireille holding her mother's skirts stared wide-eyed at the scene.

Captain Fischer looked across at Louise. "My Samaritan," ... he mumbled.

"My sister of mercy...." He rose and approached her with a stupefied

smile.

Mireille rushed at him like a little fury. "Go away," she screamed, "go

away!"

The Herr Kapitän took her not unkindly by the shoulders. "Little girls

should be in bed," he said thickly. "My little girls are in bed long

ago."

Louise clasped her hands. "I beg you, sir, have pity on us; let us go

away.... The house is yours, but let us go away."

"Where do you want to go?" he asked dully.

"To our rooms," said Louise.

"You have no rooms; they are ours," he said, and bending forward he

widened his eyes at her significantly.

Louise looked about her like a trapped animal. She saw Von Wedel and

Feldmann who had Chérie between them and were forcing her to drink out

of their glasses; she saw Glotz seated on the piano-stool looking on

with fat, impassive face; she saw the man before her bending forward and

leering suggestively, so close that she could feel his hot, acrid breath

on her face. The enemy! The man with mud and blood on his feet ... he

was putting out his hand and touching her----

She fell on her knees and dragged Mireille down beside her! she lifted

up her hands and raised her weeping face to him. "Your children ... you

have children at home ... your little girls are in bed and asleep ...

they are safe ... safe, locked in their house.... As God may guard them

for you, oh protect us! spare us! Take care of us!... Be kind--be kind!"

She dropped forward with her head on his feet--on Claude's slippers--and

little Mireille with quick tears rolling down her face looked up at him

and touched his sleeve with a trembling hand.

He looked down and frowned. His mouth worked. Yes. He had three

yellow-headed little girls in Stuttgart. It was good that they were in

Stuttgart and not in Belgium. But they were little German girls, while

these were enemies. These were belligerents. Civilians if you will, but

still belligerents....

He looked down at the woman's bowed head and fragile heaving shoulders,

and he looked at the white, frightened child-face lifted to his.

"Belligerents" ... he growled, and cleared his throat and frowned. Then

his chin quivered. "Get away," he said thickly. "Get away, both of you.

Quick. Hide in the cellar--no--not in the cellar, in the stable--in the

garden--anywhere. Don't go in the streets. The streets are full of

drunken soldiers. Go."

Louise kissed his feet, kissed Claude's slippers, and wept, while

Mireille smiled up at him with the smile of a seraph, and thanked and

thanked him, not knowing what she thanked him for.

"But--what of Chérie?" gasped Louise, looking round at the frightened

wild-rose figure in its white dress, trembling and weeping between the

two ribald men.

"You shall take her with you," said Fischer, and he went resolutely

across the room and took Chérie by the arm.

"What? What? You old reprobate," roared Feldmann, digging him in the

ribs, with peals of coarse laughter. "You have two of them! What more do

you want, you hedgehog, you? Leave this one alone."

"You leave her alone, too. I order her to go away." Fischer frowned and

cleared his throat and tried to draw Chérie from Feldmann's and Von

Wedel's grasp.

"What do you mean?" asked Von Wedel, going close up to Fischer and

looking him up and down with provocative and menacing air.

"I mean that you leave her alone," puffed the captain. "Those are my

orders, Lieutenant--and if they are not obeyed you shall answer for it."

"You old woman! you old head of a sheep," shouted Von Wedel; "answer for

it, shall I? You are drunk; and I'm drunk; and I don't care a snap

about your orders." And dragging Chérie's arm from Fischer's grasp he

pushed him back and glowered at him.

"Your orders ..." stuttered the intoxicated Feldmann, placing his hand

on Fischer's shoulder to steady himself, "your orders ... direct

contradiction with other orders ... higher orders ..." He wagged his head

at Fischer. "The German seal must be set upon the enemy's country.... Go

away. Don't be a screeching owl."

"And don't be a head of a sheep," added Von Wedel. "_Vae victis!_ If it

isn't you, it'll be somebody else. It'll be old Glotz--look at him ...

sitting there, all agog, _arrectis auribus_! Or it will be our drunken

men downstairs. Just listen to them!..."

The drunken men downstairs were roaring "Die Wacht am Rhein." Von

Wedel's argument seemed to carry conviction.

"_Vae victis!_" sighed Fischer, swallowing another glass of brandy and

looking across the room at the trembling Louise. "If it isn't I ... then

Glotz ... or somebody else ... drunken soldiers...."

He went unsteadily towards Louise, who stood clutching at the locked

door. "Woe to the vanquished, my poor woman ... seal of Germany ...

higher orders.... Why should I be a head of a sheep?..."

BOOK II