neral Gallieni, he told them to go back
to their own frontier, and ask for it there."

"And have they gone, Amelie?" I asked.

She replied quite seriously that they were going, and she was terribly
hurt because I laughed, and remarked that I hoped they would not be
too long about it.

I had the greatest possible difficulty in making her realize that we
were only hearing a very small part of a battle, which, judging by the
movements which had preceded it, was possibly extending from here
to the vicinity of Verdun, where the Crown Prince was said to be
vainly endeavoring to break through, his army acting as a sort of a
pivot on which the great advance had swung. I could not help
wondering if, as often happens in the game of "snap the whip," von
Kluck's right wing had got swung off the line by the very rapidity with
which it must have covered that long arc in the great two weeks'
offensive.

Amelie, who has an undue confidence in my opinion, was terribly
disappointed, quite downcast. Ever since the British landed--she has
such faith in the British--she has believed in a short war. Of course I
don't know any more than she does. I have to guess, and I'm not a
lucky guesser as a rule. I confess to you that even I am absolutely
obsessed by the miracle which has turned the invaders back from the
walls of Paris. I cannot get over the wonder of it. In the light of the
sudden, unexpected pause in that great push I have moments of
believing that almost anything can happen. I'll wager you know more
about it on your side of the great pond than we do here within hearing
of the battle.

I don't even know whether it is true or not that Gallieni is out there.
If it is, that must mean that the army covering Paris has advanced,
and that Joffre has called out his reserves which have been
entrenched all about the seventy-two miles of steel that guards
the capital. I wondered then, and today--seven days later--I am
wondering still.

It was useless to give these conjectures to Amelie. She was too deep
in her disappointment. She walked sadly beside me back to the
garden, an altogether different person from the one who had come
racing across the field in the sunshine. Once there, however, she
braced up enough to say:

"And only think, madame, a woman out there told me that the
Germans who were here last week were all chauffeurs at the Galeries
Lafayette and other big shops in Paris, and that they not only knew all
the country better t