So Mireille thumped the basket with her small gloved hand and murmured, "Couche-toi, tais-toi, vilian scélérat." And the official sandwiches subsided in the basket and were silent.
They never had such a journey. The train was crowded to suffocation; the whole world seemed to be going to Brussels; every few minutes their train stopped to let other even more crowded trains dash past them towards the capital.
"I have never seen so many soldiers," said Mireille. "I did not think there were so many in the world."
Frieda Rothenstein smiled disdainfully with the corners of her mouth turned down. "There are a few more than this in my country," she said.
"What? In Germany? But not such beautiful ones," cried Mireille, hanging out of the window and waving her handkerchief as many others did to a little company of Lancers cantering past on the winding road with lances fixed and pennants fluttering.
Frieda glanced at them superciliously. "You should see our Uhlans," she said. And added under her breath, "Who knows? Perhaps one day you may."
But the girls were not listening. The train was running into Brussels at last. The journey had taken five hours instead of two.
An hour later they still sat in the motionless train in the Brussels station.
"At this rate we shall never reach Bomal," said Chérie drearily, as they watched train after train packed with soldiers leave the station before theirs in the direction of Liège. Here all the world seemed to be rushing out of Brussels towards the eastern frontier.
But all things end; and finally their train started too, panting and puffing out of the Gare du Nord towards Louvain, Tirlemont, and Liège.