"I’ll bet you something. My country is all right, but it’s sick. It’s got a nauseous dose of verbiage to spew up--something it’s swallowed--something about being too proud to fight.... My brother and I couldn’t stand it, so we came to France.... He was in the photo air service. He was in mufti--and about two miles up, I believe. Six Huns went for him.... And winged him. He had to land behind their lines.... In mufti.... Well--I’ve never found courage to hear the details. I can’t stand them--yet." "Your brother--is dead, monsieur?" she asked timidly. "Oh, yes. With--circumstances. Well, then--after that, from an ordinary, commonplace man I became a machine for the extermination of vermin. That’s all I am--an animated magazine of Persian powder--or I do it in any handy way. It’s not a sporting proposition, you see, just get rid of them any old way. You don’t understand, do you?" "A--little." "But it’s slow work--slow work," he muttered vaguely, "--and the world is crawling--crawling with them. But if God guides my bomb this time and if I hit one of their gas cylinders--_that_ ought to be worth while." In the starlight his features became tense and terrible; she shivered in her threadbare jacket. After a few moments’ silence he went away up the steps to put on his German uniform. When he descended again she had a troubled question for him to answer: "But how shall you account for me, a French girl, monsieur, if they come to the belfry?" A heavy flush darkened his face: "Little mistress of the bells, I shall pretend to be what the Huns are. Do you know how they treat French women?" "I have heard," she said faintly. "Then if they come and find you here as my--_prisoner_--they will think they understand." The colour flamed in her face and she bowed it, resting her elbows on the keyboard. "Come," he said, "don’t be distressed. Does it matter what a Hun thinks? Come; let’s be cheerful. Can you hum for me ’La Brabançonne’?" She did not reply. "Well, never mind," he said. "But it’s a grand battle anthem.... We Americans have one.... It’s out of fashion. And after all, I had rather hear ’La Brabançonne’ when the time comes.... What a terrible admission! But what Americans have done to my country is far more terrible. The nation’s sick--sick!... I prefer ’La Brabançonne’ for the time being." ------------------ The Prussians entered Nivelle a little before dawn. The airman had been watching the street below. Down there in the slight glow from the cinders of what once had been a cottage a cat had been squatting, staring at the bed of coals, as though she were once more installed upon the family hearthstone. Then something unseen as yet by the airman attracted the animal’s attention. Alert, crouching, she stared down the vista of dark, deserted houses, then turned and fled like a ghost.