one in some closed space with the
detested monster. In just five minutes she would settle the universal
conflict.

"Defend yourself, Boche," she would shriek, standing at guard as in her
childhood she had seen the peons doing on the ranch.

And with a knife-thrust above and below, she would pierce his imperial
vitals. Immediately there resounded in her imagination, shouts of joy,
the gigantic sigh of millions of women freed at last from the bloody
nightmare--thanks to her playing the role of Judith or Charlotte Corday,
or a blend of all the heroic women who had killed for the common weal.
Her savage fury made her continue her imaginary slaughter, dagger in
hand. Second stroke!--the Crown Prince rolling to one side and his head
to the other. A rain of dagger thrusts!--all the invincible generals
of whom her aunt had been boasting fleeing with their insides in their
hands--and bringing up the rear, that fawning lackey who wished to
receive the same things as those of highest rank--the uncle from Berlin.
. . . Ay, if she could only get the chance to make these longings a
reality!

"You are mad," protested her mother. "Completely mad! How can a ladylike
girl talk in such a way?" . . .

Surprising her niece in the ecstasy of these delirious ravings, Dona
Elena would raise her eyes to heaven, abstaining thenceforth from
communicating her opinions, reserving them wholly for the mother.

Don Marcelo's indignation took another bound when his wife repeated to
him the news from her sister. All a lie! . . . The war was progressing
finely. On the Eastern frontier the French troops had advanced through
the interior of Alsace and Lorraine.

"But--Belgium is invaded, isn't it?" asked Dona Luisa. "And those poor
Belgians?"

Desnoyers retorted indignantly.

"That invasion of Belgium is treason. . . . And a treason never amounts
to anything among decent people."

He said it in all good faith as though war were a duel in which the
traitor was henceforth ruled out and unable to continue his outrages.
Besides, the heroic resistance of Belgium was nourishing the most absurd
illusions in his heart. The Belgians were certainly supernatural men
destined to the most stupendous achievements. . . . And to think that
heretofore he had never taken this plucky little nation into account!
. . . For several days, he considered Liege a holy city before whose
walls the Teutonic power would be completely confounded. Upon the fall
of Liege, his