After assuring himself that there was still a noon train, H. led me to the restaurant directly opposite the station.
"We'll have a bite here. Heaven knows what time we shall reach home!"
The room was filled to overflowing; the lunchers being mostly officers. At the table on our right sat a young fellow whose military harnessings were very new and very stiff, but in spite of the heat, a high collar and all his trappings he managed to put away a very comfortable repast.
On our left was a party composed of a captain, his wife and two other freres d'armes. That brave little Parisian woman at once won my admiration, for though, in spite of superhuman efforts, the tears would trickle down her face, she never gave in one second to her emotion but played her part as hostess, trying her best to put her guests at ease and smilingly inquiring after their family and friends as though she were receiving under ordinary circumstances in her own home.
At a quarter before noon we left them and elbowed our way through the ever-gathering crowd towards our train.
"The twelve o'clock express—what platform?" H. inquired.
"The ten o'clock train hasn't gone yet, Monsieur!"
"Is there any danger of its not going?"
"Oh, no; but there's every danger of its being the last."
And the man spoke the truth, for as our friend the politician predicted, at noon military authority took over the station and all those who were so unfortunate as to have been left behind were obliged to wait in Paris three mortal weeks. On the Eastern Railway all passenger service was immediately sacrificed to the transportation of troops.