CHAPTER XVIII

The little apartment in the Avenue d'Antin shone like a carefully kept doll's house. Marie, indulging her fancy for dainty clothes, went about the tiny rooms dressed in the prettiest frocks in her modest _trousseau_.

There were visits back and forth between her cousins and herself. Fleurette and Sidonie spent long afternoons with her, which she did her best to fill with interest and enjoyment for them, getting out her finest china for the afternoon chocolate. They never ceased to wonder at her new dignity, her staid little air of matronliness, secretly promising themselves to copy it when they should be married. When the time came for Julie to call for them, it always seemed too soon, and Marie used to stand at her window and wave good-bye to them till they had turned the corner.

There were afternoons, too, when she would take her sewing in a dainty reticule and go sedately up to the apartment in the Avenue Victor Hugo. Her life was full and overflowing. Occasionally Gerome would bring one of his fellow-officers and his wife to dine, and sometimes these visits were returned.

So the days slipped by, peacefully, calmly, each filled with more happiness than Marie ever dreamed life could hold.

Then into this peaceful, contented atmosphere, gradually, imperceptibly, out of the nowhere, vague rumors began to shape themselves. A curious palpitating unrest made itself felt. The air seemed charged with something strange, alive, too formless to guess at, until one momentous day, that was to stand forever a grim milestone in the world's history. The papers were full of a terrible happening. The Austrian Archduke had been assassinated, a shot had been fired at the royal carriage in a far-away country. Through the Paris streets, the news was cried.

Intangible menace seemed to quiver in the air, filling the heart with vague apprehensions of coming danger, like the glare of a great conflagration that is seen on the far horizon.

When she questioned her husband, he quieted her fears, though his own brow was anxious. This was all too remote, it would never come near enough to destroy.

There were long discussions over the little dining-table when the Le Grands or any of Gerome's fellow officers came to dine. She heard her own Austria discussed unfavorably. She wondered that Germany, whom she had always been brought up to look upon as the Great Protector, should here be viewed as the Arch-Conspirator, the Menacing Tyrant, bloodthirstily eager to get the whole world in the grip of its mailed fist.

Looking at her husband's uniform, it was brought home to her, with a gasping fear, what war might mean to her. But Gerome, seeing the look in her eyes, would reach across the table and pat her hand, and Monsieur Le Grand would rumble his assurances that everything would surely blow over, Germany was too wise to set all Europe against her.

And then the distant conflagration seemed to grow clearer. It was as though the bright tongues of flame one had only imagined, became suddenly visible, leaping, advancing, devouring everything in their course.

The formless something that had palpitated in the air, took shape, and began to spell out the dread word, "WAR."

Every hour extras came out with news. Every hour it was denied.

From the windows of the little apartment in the Avenue d'Antin, Marie, with a white face, stood at Gerome's shoulder, watching the bonfires blazing where the police were burning the false newspapers.

"What does it all mean?" she shuddered. "What can it all mean?"

Gerome held her close.

"It may mean dreadful things, dear, we can only wait and see," he told her.

She was frightened every moment he was away from her, though the Avenue d'Antin was quiet and peaceful. On her way to visit the Le Grands, she had seen the huge placards posted along the Boulevards ordering the men to the _casernes_.

Gerome was with his regiment nearly always now, and she was much alone. Terror of what it might mean, fear of she knew not what, enveloped her. Here and there, she was beginning to hear the street gamins shout out their hatred of the _Boches_. Once or twice they had called the name at her. She began to fancy she could even see in the kindly faces of her cousins a certain resentment of her origin.

Once she had spoken to Fleurette in German, and the girl had raised her arm as though warding off a blow.

"Don't speak that language," she had cried, and Marie, white-faced and wide-eyed, had looked into their serious faces, terror-stricken.

It couldn't be true! There couldn't be war! To-day, when mankind had grown so civilized, so filled with a sense of culture as she had heard it preached, it couldn't be true! The Fatherland, her Austria, and the country she had made her own? It was too horrible, too terrible to think of, it couldn't be! These weren't the days of the dark ages! This was the enlightened twentieth century! It would all blow over! It must!

Gerome soothed her.

"Marie, dear," he said seriously, "we are on the edge of grave things. I am not asking you to give up your love for your home land, but your allegiance belongs here now. We must be very careful. Everywhere there is suspicion, distrust of those who are not of our own blood. We must be very cautious."

Marie threw herself into his arms, frightened at his gravity.

"Nothing matters but you," she said; "nothing! There won't be war! There can't be! Nothing shall take you away from me!"

Her husband shook his head sadly above her trembling shoulders.

"Poor little one," he sighed, "there shouldn't be war! But there may be. We must all do our best, whatever comes!"

A few days later, came a wild letter from Paulette.

"What is Paris saying?" it began. "What is Paris doing? Are we to let our country be overrun? Our beloved France insulted, reviled? Papa is drilling men every day here at the _caserne_, and Maurice is at home in Belgium now, but he will come as soon as France needs him and fight for the flag he loves almost as well as his own. _Maman_, too, is busy teaching the peasants what to do in case of the worst. Robert, the butler, has left to enlist if he is needed, and we have a new man. He is over age, they do not need him to fight. He seems very good. Even old Nanine is going to send her three sons. Oh, Gerome, my brother, I wish I were a man, so that I could go with you and fight for France if she needs me." And then in a paragraph all by itself had followed the line: "What about Marie--is she one of us?"

Marie looked up startled from the letter Gerome had handed her.

Paulette's vague distrust was voiced now. She was an alien, an enemy. She seemed to hear the cries of the street gamins, "_yah! Boche!_" To her there was neither France nor Germany, peace nor war. There was only Gerome, her husband. He was her world, her all, without him, Chaos! It was all a horrible nightmare; such things did not happen to-day. Husbands would not leave wives who loved them, to fight husbands of other wives who loved them equally well. They were living in a civilized world, a world that had outlived the horrors of Barbarian times. Such things did not happen!

* * * * * * *

And then the sun had risen on the fourth of August and Belgium lay ravished and bleeding. The world rocked and groaned and was torn asunder. The skies thundered to the echo and re-echo of devastating guns. One after another, the nations shook off the security of peace, girded themselves in the red garb of war, and clashed their shields one on the other. Such things _did_ happen! Civilization had perished!

France was called to arms. France was responding with all the joyousness, the brilliancy with which she had lived in peace. France was lifting her proud head, her brave, indomitable spirit against that ever-advancing gray wall of deadliness, that gray wall that for forty years, had builded and prepared itself, had seen that no chink or cranny should be left in it when The Day arrived. And against this menace, as it came closer and closer, France, pitifully unprepared, unexpectedly called from her playtime, was taking her stand, brave and full of the courage of the right that knows no defeat.

Everywhere was the sound of the Marseillaise, the tramp of marching feet. Marie went with the Le Grands to watch the soldiers pass along the Champs Elysées. The music of the band, as they swung along, the fluttering tri-color that caught the sunlight, the eager glow of patriotism shining from each young face as it swept by, tightened her throat, misted her eyes, and she found herself forgetting that they were marching against her own people, her own Fatherland.

She saw herself in each mother, each wife, each sweetheart, trudging along by the side of the swinging troops. She felt her own heart bleed with these weeping ones, sending their best to fight for what, they loved more, La Patrie! When she could bear it no longer, she turned with streaming eyes and begged Fleurette and Sidonie to take her home.

Gerome was not to leave yet, he had other work to do; but she knew the day was not far distant when she would be sending him out as those other mothers, wives and sweethearts were doing.

The days swept on into those terrible ones, when all Paris waited anxiously for the result of the battles being waged, when all Paris shuddered with the approach of invading feet. Breathless excitement, wild joy at the reports of victory, of the foe vanquished, ran like wild-fire through the streets. Then followed those other rumors, alarming, terrible, later confirmed by official reports. The Army was falling back! The Enemy was advancing!

Gerome was with her less and less now. Marie kept safely hidden in her little apartment. When he came home, it was only for hurried, brief visits, assurances that he would see to her safety, but that his place and duty was with his regiment which had been detailed to guard the city.

One morning, Marie was awakened by an ominous rumbling, far away, deep-toned and menacing.

Suzanne ran in trembling with fright.

"Madame," she gasped, "it is the guns! Do you not hear them?"

She went to the window and looked down into the street. People ran past, terrified, shouting that the city would be taken. She saw some of her neighbors leave their houses, with only such of their belongings as they could conveniently carry with them.

Toward noon, the Le Grands came, dressed for traveling, Madame's eyes were red with weeping, and the two girls whimpered like frightened babies. Monsieur, his swarthy face yellowish from a long night of vigil and the knowledge of what this might mean to Paris, bade Marie pack a few things and come with them.

"We are leaving for Bordeaux," he said. "The Government has been moved there. I go with my office. You must come with us, Marie, you will be safer there."

Marie stared from one to the other, frightened.

"How can I go," she said. "Gerome is with his regiment at the Fortifications. He bade me stay here, close, indoors."

Nothing could move her, and weeping bitterly, the girls clinging about her neck, and Madame kissing her sadly, they said good-bye.

The cloud that hung over everything deepened, grew blacker. Terror, horror, and a dreadful sorrow stalked the streets. Defeat was approaching, defeat by a foe who had once before marched triumphantly down these broad avenues, under these stately arches built as the memorial of a proudly victorious nation. Men and women stopped each other in the streets, asking if this were going to happen again.

Invasion, and all that it meant, hung like a black pall over the city called the gayest, the happiest in the world, covering, enveloping it with a dreadful menace.

A tragic figure, Paris waited its doom.

Then, suddenly, across the blackness came a message. The enemy was halted. Louder roared the guns, but now, those who listened seemed to hear a note of triumph in their fierce song, a shout that bade them look up, take courage! It was as though the spirit of Jeanne d'Arc had again raised the Oriflamme.

La Patrie lifted her head once more. Bloody, wounded, but proudly undaunted.

Another message! The enemy was retiring!

The flower of France was sweeping onward! Onward! The tide had turned!

Through the streets, the people sang, shouted, wild with joy.

A little stream had marked the high tide of French patriotism and valor; a little stream that would live in the memory of men as long as deeds like these should be written or sung; a little stream which would be forever after endeared to the hearts and the minds of the French nation--the Marne!