Page:The Marne (Wharton 1918).djvu/97

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THE MARNE
89

of having doubted, as if she wanted, by a livelier renewal of activities, to proclaim her unshakable faith in her defenders. In the perpetual sunshine of the most golden of springs she basked and decked herself, and mirrored her recovered beauty in the Seine.

And still the cloudless weeks succeeded each other, days of blue warmth and nights of silver lustre; and still, behind the impenetrable wall of the front, the Beast dumbly lowered and waited. Then one morning, toward the end of May, Troy, waking late after an unusually hard day, read: "The new German offensive has begun. The Chemin des Dames has been retaken by the enemy. Our valiant troops are resisting heroically. . . ."

Ah, now indeed they were on the road to Paris! In a flash of horror he saw it all. The bitter history of the war was re-enacting itself, and the