constantly--_elle poussait des soupirs tristes_--at the lurid
spectacle her husband's words conjured up. According to him, anything
was possible. There might be sudden massacres in Peking itself--the
Chinese Government had gone mad. Rendered more and more talkative by
the wine and the good fare, he became alarming, menacing in the end.
But we became more and more valiant as we ate and drank. That is
always so.

It was all the guards' fault. Telegrams despatched in the morning from
Tientsin distinctly told us that the guards were entraining; later
news said the guards had actually started; and yet when we were almost
through dinner, and it was nearly ten o'clock, there was not a sign of
them. That was the distressing point, and in the end, as it thrust
itself more and more on people's attention, the first great valour
began to ooze. For although the Guardian of the Nine Gates--a species
of Manchu warden or grand constable of Peking--has been officially
warned that foreign guards, whose arrival has been duly authorised by
the Tsung-li Yamen, may be a little late and that consequently the
Ch'ien Men, or the Middle Gate, should be kept open a couple of hours
longer, the chief guardian may become nervous and irate and
incontinently shut the gates. This alone might provoke an outbreak.

This train of thought once started, we busily followed it up, and soon
all the wives were sighing in unison more heavily than ever. I shall
always remember what happened at that psychological moment. A strip of
red-lined native writing-paper was placed in somebody's hands with a
long list of the different detachments which had just passed in
through the Main Gate. At last the guards had arrived. Speedily we
became very valorous again. P---- afterwards said that he knew
something which he had not dared to tell any one--not even his
secretaries.

From this little list, it was soon clear that the British, French,
Russian, American, Italian, and Japanese detachments had arrived. The
Germans and the Austrians were missing, but we concluded that they
would arrive by another train within very few hours. The important
point was that men had been allowed to come through--that the Chinese
Government, in spite of its enormous capacity for mischief, could not
yet have made up its mind how to act. That consoled us.

After this, a faint-hearted attempt was made to continue our talk. But
it was no good. We soon discovered that each one of us had been
s