It was only last night at seven o'clock that we all dined together at the Terminus; but since then a million years have rolled over us; we have been snatched into one of History's most terrific pages; and we all have a burning breathless Saga of our own hanging on our lips, crying to be told aloud before the world.
We all fling out disjointed remarks, and I hear of the awful night in that quarter of the city.
"How are you going to get away?"
"And you, how are you going to get away?"
The tall, slight young man with the little dark moustache is Mr. Jeffries of the Daily Mail, who has been staying at the Hotel de l'Europe. With him is the popular Mr. Perry Robinson of the Times. The third is Mr. P. Phillips of the Daily News.
"I have just come from the État Majeur," Mr. Jeffries tells me hurriedly. "There is not a ghost of a hope now! Everyone has gone. We must get away at once."
"I am not going," I say. For suddenly the knowledge has come to me that I cannot leave the greatest of my dramas before the curtain rolls up in the last scene. In vain they argue, tell me I am mad. I am not going.
So they say good-bye and leave me.