He is the proprietor himself.
And here up from the stairs behind us that lead down into the cellars, comes his wife, wrapped in furs.
"Henri, I heard your voice. I am going. I cannot stand it. I shall flee to Holland with little Marie. Put me into the motor car. My legs will not carry me. I fear for the child so much!"
A kiss, and she and little Marie flee away through the madness of the night towards the Breda Gate and the safety of some Dutch village across the border.
Every now and then I would open the swing-doors and fly like mad on tip-toe to the corner of the Avenue de Commerce, and there, casting one swift glance right and left, I would take in the awful panorama of scarlet flames. They were leaping now over the Marché Aux Souliers, the street which corresponds with our Strand. While I watched I heard the shrieking rush of one shell after another, any one of which might of course well have fallen where I stood.
But I knew they wouldn't. I felt as safe and secure there in that shell-swept corner as if I had been a child again, at home in silent, sleepy, far-away Australia!
The fact is when you are in the midst of danger, with shells bursting round you, and the city on fire, and the Germans closing in on you, and your friends and home many hundreds of miles away, your brain works in an entirely different way from when you are living safely in your peaceful Midlands.
Quite unconsciously, one's ego asserts itself in danger, until it seems that one carries within one a world so important, so limitless, and immortal, that it appears invincible before hurt or death.
This is an illusion, of course; but what a beautiful and merciful one!
When danger comes your way this illusion will begin to weave a sort of fairy haze around you, making you feel that those shrieking shells can never fall on you!