rations for the defense of Paris were being pushed forward . . .
rather late. The forts were supplying themselves with new cannon.
Houses, built in the danger zone in the piping times of peace, were now
disappearing under the blows of the official demolition. The trees on
the outer avenues were being felled in order to enlarge the horizon.
Barricades of sacks of earth and tree trunks were heaped at the doors of
the old walls. The curious were skirting the suburbs in order to gaze
at the recently dug trenches and the barbed wire fences. The Bois de
Boulogne was filled with herds of cattle. Near heaps of dry alfalfa
steers and sheep were grouped in the green meadows. Protection against
famine was uppermost in the minds of a people still remembering the
suffering of 1870. Every night, the street lighting was less and less.
The sky, on the other hand, was streaked incessantly by the shafts from
the searchlights. Fear of aerial invasion was increasing the public
uneasiness. Timid people were speaking of Zeppelins, attributing to
them irresistible powers, with all the exaggeration that accompanies
mysterious dangers.

In her panic, Dona Luisa greatly distressed her husband, who was passing
the days in continual alarm, yet trying to put heart into his trembling
and anxious wife. "They are going to come, Marcelo; my heart tells
me so. The girl! . . . the girl!" She was accepting blindly all the
statements made by her sister, the only thing that comforted her
being the chivalry and discipline of those troops to which her nephews
belonged. The news of the atrocities committed against the women of
Belgium were received with the same credulity as the enemy's advances
announced by Elena. "Our girl, Marcelo. . . . Our girl!" And the girl,
object of so much solicitude, would laugh with the assurance of vigorous
youth on hearing of her mother's anxiety. "Just let the shameless
fellows come! I shall take great pleasure in seeing them face to face!"
And she clenched her right hand as though it already clutched the
avenging knife.

The father became tired of this situation. He still had one of his
monumental automobiles that an outside chauffeur could manage. Senator
Lacour obtained the necessary passports and Desnoyers gave his wife
her orders in a tone that admitted of no remonstrance. They must go to
Biarritz or to some of the summer resorts in the north of Spain. Almost
all the South American families had already gone in the same dir