"Is there any rule against your telling me what you've seen, Philip?"
De Rougemont and several other officers had approached, drawn by their curiosity, and interest in Lannes.
"None at all," he replied in a tone all could hear, "but I'm able to speak in general terms only. I can't give details, because I don't know 'em. The Germans are not many miles ahead. They're in hundreds of thousands, and I hear that this is only one of a half-dozen armies."
"And our own force?" said de Rougemont eagerly.
Lannes' chest expanded. The dramatic impulse was strong upon him again.
"There is another army on our right, and another on our left," he replied, "and although I don't know surely, I think there are others still further on the line. The English are somewhere with us, too."
John felt his face tingle as the blood rose in it. He had left a Paris apparently lost. Within a day almost a tremendous transformation had occurred. A mighty but invisible intellect, to which he was yet scarcely able to attach a name, had been at work. The French armies, the beaten and the unbeaten, had become bound together like huge links in a chain, and the same invisible and all but nameless mind was drawing the chain forward with gigantic force.
"A million Frenchmen must be advancing," he heard Lannes saying, and then he came out of his vision. General Vaugirard bustled up and gave orders to de Rougemont, who said presently to John:
"Can you ride a motor cycle?"
"I've had some experience, and I'm willing to make it more."