Both boys were excited as they left the office. "He talks as if he knew something, or felt something, that is still a secret!" said Frank, excitedly. "I wonder--" "Of no use to wonder," said Henri. Really, he was calmer than his companion. "What is to come must come. But you are coming home with me, Frank. We know that much. And that is good--that is the best news we could have, isn't it?" "It's certainly good news for me," said Frank, happily. "Oh, Harry, I get so tired of living in school or in hotels all the time! It will seem good to be in a home again, even if it isn't my own home!" CHAPTER II TO THE COLORS In those days late in July, France, less than almost any country in Europe, certainly far less than either England or America, was able to realize the possibilities of trouble. As a matter of fact, not for years had the peace of Europe been so assured, apparently. President Poincare of France had gone to visit the Czar of Russia, and the two rulers had exchanged compliments. The alliance of France and Russia, they told one another, made war impossible, or nearly so. The Emperor of Germany was on a yachting cruise; even the old Austrian Kaiser, though required to watch affairs because of the death of his heir, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, murdered by a Serb fanatic at Sarajeve, had left Vienna. Even when the storm cloud began to gather the French government did all it could to suppress the news. The readiness of France was not in question. France was always ready, as Henri Martin had said. Since the grim and terrible lesson of 1870 she had made up her mind never again to give the traditional enemy beyond the Rhine--and, alas, now on this side of the Rhine as well!--a chance to catch her unprepared. What the government wanted was to prevent the possibility that an excited populace, especially in Paris, might force its hand. If war came it meant that Germany should provoke it--if possible, begin it. It was willing to sacrifice some things for that. And this was because, in the years of peace, France had won a great diplomatic victory, the fruits of which the country must preserve. In 1870 France had had to face Germany alone. She had counted upon help from Austria, now Germany's firm friend and ally, but then still smarting under the blow of the defeat four years before. She had hoped for help, perhaps, from Roumania and from Russia.