The Marne

at St Mori

rs. Belknap at dinner (as they did now regularly, Troy having reached the virile age of fifteen, and having to justify the possession of a smokin

war-I must le

pped the

ir elaborately planned courses of study-arch?ology, French literature, medi?val philosophy, the Divine Comedy, and vistas and vistas beyond-to be torn from all this, and to disappear from Troy Belknap's life into t

knap was

he "Marseillaise" and Sambre-et-Meuse, and everybody knew the Russians would be in Berlin

poor helpless American boy, who adored her, and could do no

ssurance that the Swiss frontier would not be closed before they could cross the border. These preoccupations seemed to leave them, for the moment, no time to think

eat traceried window opening on the universe. And now, in the hour of her need

charities. They even remembered poor Madame Lebuc, stranded by the flight of all her pupils, and found a job for her in a refugee bureau. Then, just as they were about to sail, Mrs. Belknap had a touch of pneumonia, and was obliged to postpone her departure; wh

ot at once, and Troy had had a post-card from him, dated the 6th of Aug

here they had gone to drink coffee, old M. Gantier ceremoniously leading the way with Mrs. Belknap; he saw Mme. Gantier, lame and stout, hobbling after with Mr. Belknap; a little old aunt with bobbing curls; the round-faced Gantier girl, shy and rosy; an incredibly dried and smoked and aged grandfather, with Voltairian eyes and sly snuff-taking gestures; and his own friend, the eldest of the three brothers; he saw all these modest beaming

ar, he remembered, ol

ally, amid the crowding horrors of that dread August, he forgot even M. Gantier, and M. Gantier's family, forgot everything but the spectacle of the A

arities. But most of her time was spent in agitated conference with her compatriots, and Troy could not bear to listen to their endlessly reiterated tales of flight from Nauheim or Baden or Brussels, their difficulties in

ay by an explosion of temper. "It is so natural she should be nervous at not being able to

elknap exclaimed, "Why, Troy, how callous-with all this suffering!" he slunk o

about marble hotels and pore over newspapers, while rank on rank, and regiment on regiment, the youth of France and England, swung through the dazed streets and packed the endless trains-the misery of this

were preparing to start, news came that the German army

that bit of France alone with M. Gantier the year before, while Mrs. Belknap waited in Paris for belated clothes; and the thought of the great stretch of desolation spreading and spreading like a

rs. Belknap, in her horrified surprise at seeing her plans again obstructed, lost all sense of the impending calamity except as it affected her safety and Troy's, and joined

r jewel-boxes clutched in one hand, their passports in the other, "but one can't help feeling that

Government know? After all, Germany

n Europe for some consideration to be

r lives. But Troy was too young to understand this, and to foresee that, once in safety, they would become the passionat

as the only thing one could do to show one's sympathy," he heard one of t

garded them all as heartless egoists, and fled away i

ry horses, and heaped with furniture and household utensils; and beside the carts walked lines of haggard people, old men and women with vacan

re they were engulfed in the dusty arena, and finally, in despair at his inability to do more than gape

lians, young, middle-aged, and even grey-headed, were shambling along together, badged and beribboned, in the directio

yously in broken American. "All 'nited States citizens.... Come and join u

ng eyes he stood, small and useless, on the pavement, and watched the heterogeneous

dy was saying: "I've offered anything for a special train, but they won't listen...." And