towered over them with his glowing words and
enjoyed it all; he knew very well that we really belong to the things
that we fancy are our possessions.

Clerambault had just finished with a Schilleresque vision of the
fraternal joys promised in the future. Maxime, carried away by his
enthusiasm in spite of his sense of humour, had given the orator a
round of applause all by himself. Pauline noisily asked if Agenor
had not heated himself in speaking, and amid the excitement Rosine
silently pressed her lips to her father's hand.

The servant brought in the mail and the evening papers, but no one was
in a hurry to read them. The news of the day seemed behind the times
compared with the dazzling future. Maxime however took up the popular
middle-class sheet, and threw his eye over the columns. He started
at the latest items and exclaimed; "Hullo! War is declared." No one
listened to him: Clerambault was dreaming over the last vibrations of
his verses; Rosine lost in a calm ecstasy; the mother alone, who could
not fix her mind on anything, buzzing about like a fly, chanced to
catch the last word,--"Maxime, how can you be so silly?" she cried,
but Maxime protested, showing his paper with the declaration of war
between Austria and Servia.

"War with whom?"--"With Servia?"--"Is that all?" said the good woman,
as if it were a question of something in the moon.

Maxime however persisted,--_doctus cum libro_,--arguing that from one
thing to another, this shock no matter how distant, might bring about
a general explosion; but Clerambault, who was beginning to come out
of his pleasant trance, smiled calmly, and said that nothing would
happen.

"It is only a bluff," he declared, "like so many we have had for the
last thirty years; we get them regularly every spring and summer; just
bullying and sabre-rattling." People did not believe in war, no one
wanted it; war had been proved to be impossible,--it was a bugbear
that must be got out of the heads of free democracies ... and he
enlarged on this theme. The night was calm and sweet; all around
familiar sounds and sights; the chirp of crickets in the fields, a
glow-worm shining in the grass,--delicious perfume of honey-suckle.
Far away the noise of a distant train; the little fountain tinkled,
and in the moonless sky revolved the luminous track of the light on
the Eiffel Tower.

The two women went into the house, and Maxime, tired of sitting down,
ran about the garden with h