Advisedly they withdrew into the sitting-room, where Phil became a Roman sentinel on guard. Soon they had glimpses of green figures with cloth-covered helmets working their way through the grounds and along the village streets. But the figures seemed to be too busy to pay any attention to the house. Then shells began to break over the village and grounds again, French shells into the advancing German infantry, which once more sent the cousins to the cellar. When they returned upstairs Jacqueline met them, highly excited. "I saw it with my own eyes!" she exclaimed. "I couldn't keep indoors when our shells were coming. Yes, I saw one burst right in among the beasts and knock a lot of them over! Three never will get up again and they carried the others away, back to the Kaiser!" Put a red cap on Jacqueline, and with the flashing of her black eyes she would have needed no further make-up for the storming of the Bastille. CHAPTER XIX A CHOICE OF BILLETS With the French guns withdrawn from range, nothing interfered with the remorselessly steady tramp of the column of infantry passing the gate; and out on the main road an unending stream of men, guns, and transport flowed, eyes on the goal of Paris. The chateau and its grounds were an island in the green advancing tide planning to overflow the world. The three had little appetite for dinner, which Jacqueline prepared earlier than usual. They had finished when one of the green units detached itself from the procession of armed power. "We billet here to-night," he said in French to Phil, who met him at the door. "How many of you are there? Three? Keep to your bedrooms and leave the rest of the house to us. And you, are you English?" "No, American." "And what are you doing here?" "I am here with my cousins," he answered. "We managed to get their mother away to Paris." "Keep to your rooms!" was the warning. A few minutes later a dozen dusty officers with baggage and orderlies arrived. Their guttural voices seemed to fill the rooms. When they wanted to occupy the kitchen Jacqueline was inclined to show fight, but Phil dissuaded her and after her first temperamental outburst she yielded to Cæsar and put her saucepans at the service of Cæsar's minions, who were already rummaging among the preserves and the wines. It was war, a matter of course. Jacqueline being bred of a military race accommodated herself to the fact, with a deadly hate in her heart. By the wish of the two girls, who plainly preferred not to be alone, they all made Henriette's bedroom a sitting-room. There they sat, listening to the heavy footsteps below, the loud talk with references to Paris, the clinking of glasses and toasts of exultant militarism. Phil's anger was hard to control. He was not of a military race. These men were highwaymen and burglars to him, outraging a home.