The General was tugging at his moustache. Thanks to one dilapidated old trap, he who had led charges in '70 and fought from Gravelotte to Paris was holding a small hand; but he was still a strategist, who now had a Napoleonic flash of initiative. "Madame, while as a soldier I think there is no danger," he said, "I feel it my duty to remain at the chateau overnight, so that you will know I am near in case there should be an unexpected crisis which in time of war only a soldier knows how to face. I shall take forty winks on the sofa here as I have done many times in my tent on campaign. Ah, those days! And you will find me here in the morning," he concluded, turning triumphantly to the Count. Ever impartial, Madame Ribot now bestowed her smile on the General. "But Madame is not afraid," put in the Count. "I fear she will take your offer, General, as an indication that she is." "On the contrary," said Madame Ribot, "it takes crises like this to prove what good neighbours one has. You have assured my reaching the station"--with a smile to the Count--"and you have assured that some one is on guard," with a smile to the General. "But you will have to pack, you forget that, _mon general_!" the _noblesse_ remarked to the army, with extreme politeness. "I pack! I go!" the General snorted. "I shall not let the Germans drive me from my house!" he said. "I remain! I know that the army will hold!" "And I shall see Madame safely to Paris, feeling that a Frenchman can serve France best not with the Germans but with the French," remarked the Count pithily. "Sometimes a soldier too old to fight can serve in other ways," replied the General. "Madame, I am sorry that it is to be at such an early hour," the Count concluded, as he kissed Madame Ribot's hand and withdrew. The General also kissed it; and Madame Ribot, quite stately, ascended to her room. "We also must pack," said Henriette to Helen. They, too, went upstairs and left America and the French army together. "A fine woman, Madame Ribot!" said the General. "Ah, our guns! Hear them! Our guns--and I a gouty old man--a bag of bones! But this old heart," he placed his hand over it, "has all the desire it ever had." "You can see the guns from the upper terrace," suggested Phil. "Come on, then, Monsieur," exclaimed the General. "You will forgive me," he added, as they started up the path, "for intruding myself when there was already a man here, a young, self-reliant man, as I see you are. But that pestiferous Count!" he exclaimed belligerently; then he chuckled philosophically. "Ah, he and I play a game which pleases Madame and pleases us, we who live on memory--though she need not if she were not so selfish. I do not like to allow the Count to score--it makes him so jealous when you score off him. Then, one must be amused in the country when time hangs idle on the hands and one grows old."