_Vivie_: "It depends on what you mean by 'wonderful.' If you admire the fidelity of the reproduction in colour and texture of the Flemish costumes of the fifteenth century, I agree with you. It is also interesting to see the revelations of their domestic architecture and furniture of that time, and the types of domestic dog, cow and horse. But if you admire them as being true pictures of life in Palestine in the time of Christ, or in the Rhineland of the fifth century, then I think they--like most Old Masters--are perfectly rotten. And have you ever remarked another thing about all paintings prior to the seventeenth century: how _plain_, how _ugly_ all the people are? You never see a single good-looking man or woman. Do let's go and have that dinner you spoke of. I've got a prison appetite." At Ghent another delay and a few uneasy rumours. The Court was said to be removing from Brussels and establishing itself at Antwerp. The train at last drew into the main station at Brussels half an hour after midnight. Vivie's mother was nowhere to be seen. She had evidently gone back to the Villa Beau-sejour while she could. It was too late for any tram in the direction of Tervueren. There were no taxis owing to the drivers being called up. Leaving most of her luggage at the cloak-room--it took her about three-quarters of an hour even to approach the receiving counter--Vivie walked across to the _Palace Hotel_ and asked the night porter to get her a room. But every room was occupied, they said--Americans, British, wealthy war refugees from southern Belgium, military officers of the Allies. The only concession made to her--for the porter could hold out little hope of any neighbouring hotel having an empty room--was to allow her to sit and sleep in one of the comfortable basket chairs in the long atrium. At six o'clock a compassionate waiter who knew the name of Mrs. Warren gave her daughter some coffee and milk and a _brioche_. At seven she managed to get her luggage taken to one of the trams at the corner of the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique. The train service to Tervueren was suspended--and at the Porte de Namur she would be transferred to the No. 45 tram which would take her out to Tervueren. Even at an early hour Brussels seemed crowded and as the tram passed along the handsome boulevards the shops were being opened and tourists were on their way to Waterloo in brakes. Every one seemed to think in mid-August, 1914, that Germany was destined to receive her _coup-de-grace_ on the field of Waterloo. It would be so appropriate. And no one--at any rate of those who spoke their thoughts aloud--seemed to consider that Brussels was menaced. Leaving her luggage at the tram terminus, Vivie sped on foot through forest roads, where the dew still glistened, to the Villa Beau-sejour. Mrs. Warren was not yet dressed, but was rapturous in her greeting. Her chauffeur had been called up, so the auto could not go out, but a farm cart would be sent for the luggage.