"It won't bear thinking of, will it?" said Granger. "That fellow is rather long with the coffee."
They waited, discussing the probable course of the war. After a while Granger summoned the head waiter.
"Our waiter has been over long fetching our coffee," he said. "Will you stir him up?"
In a minute or two the head waiter returned, carrying the coffee himself.
"Pardon, messieurs," he said. "Gustave was suddenly taken sick, and is not able to serve at present."
"I have lost this trick," said Granger ruefully, when they were again alone. "While I had my eye on the German, he evidently had his eye on me. And for once the German was the quicker to act. Well, we all have our ups and downs--I might have said our exits and our entrances: exit spy, enter staff-officer, who is looking for you, Monsieur Pariset, if I am not mistaken."
A Belgian captain was threading his way across the room, looking quickly from table to table, here and there acknowledging or returning a greeting, but briefly, in the manner of one preoccupied. His glance suddenly falling on Pariset, he smiled, and came directly towards him.
"I heard that you were here," he said. "Have you finished?"
"Yes."
"Then give me a minute privately."