party; he says he even kissed the flea-bitten grey. Then he sat down on a suit-case and thought.
It was perfectly true: the Gare de Lyon was shut to all civilians; the first shadow of war had come. As if drawn by a magnet the old men were there, the men who remembered the last time when the Prussian swine had stamped their way across the fields of France. Their eyes were bright, their shoulders thrown back as they glanced appraisingly at the next generation—their sons who would wipe out Sedan for ever from the pages of history. There was something grimly pathetic and grimly inspiring in the presence of those old soldiers: the men who had failed through no fault of their own.
"Not again," they seemed to say; "for God's sake, not a second time. This time—Victory. Wipe it out—that stain."
They had failed, true; but there were others who would succeed; and it was their presence that made one feel the unconquerable spirit of France.
III
The French officer in charge was polite, but firmly non-committal.
"There is a train which will leave here about midnight, we hope. If you can get a seat on it—well and good. If not" he shrugged his shoulders superbly, and the conversation closed.
It was a troop train apparently, and in the course of time it would arrive at Marseilles—perhaps. It
