As the dinner proceeded John admired the extraordinary composure of the Lannes family. Surely a woman and a girl of only seventeen would feel consternation at the knowledge that an overwhelming enemy was almost within sight of the city they must love so much. Yet they did not refer to it, until nearly the close of the dinner, and it was Madame who introduced the subject.
"I hear, Philip," she said, "that a bomb was thrown today from a German aeroplane into the Place de l'Opéra, killing a woman and injuring several other people."
"It is true, mother."
John glanced covertly at Julie, and saw her face pale. But she did not tremble.
"Is it true also that the German army is near?" asked Madame Lannes, with just the faintest quiver in her voice.
"Yes, mother. John, standing in the lantern of the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur, saw through his glasses the flash of sunlight on the lances of their Uhlans. A shell from one of their great guns could fall in the suburbs of Paris."
John's covert glance was now for Madame Lannes. How would the matron who was cast in the antique mold of Rome take such news? But she veiled her eyes a little with her long lashes, and he could not catch the expression there.
"I believe it is not generally known in Paris that the enemy is so very near," said Philip, "and while I have not hesitated to tell you the full truth, mother, I ask you and Julie not to speak of it to others."
"Of course, Philip, we would add nothing to the general alarm, which is great enough already, and with cause. But what do you wish us to do? Shall we remain here, or go while it is yet time to our cousins, the Menards, at Lyons?"
Now it was the mother who, in this question of physical peril, was showing deference to her son, the masculine head of the family. John liked it. He remembered an old saying, and he felt it to be true, that they did many things well in France.