"You will be taken for a spy!"
"You will never get there!"
All these things, and hosts of others, were said, but perhaps the most potent of all the arguments was that put up by the sweet little lady from Liège, the black-eyed mother with two adorable little boys, and a delightful big husband—the gallant chevalier, in yellow bags of trousers, whom I have already referred to in an earlier chapter.
This little Liègeoise and I were now great friends; I shall speak of her as Alice. She had a gaiety and insouciance, and a natural childlike merriment that all her terrible disasters could not overcloud. What laughs we used to have together, she and I, what talks, what walks! And sometimes the big husband would give Alice a delightful little dinner at the Criterium Restaurant in the Avenue de Kaiser, where we ate such delicious things, it was impossible to believe oneself in a Belgian city, with War going on at the gates.
When I told Alice that I was going to Brussels, she set to work with all her womanly powers of persuasion to make me give up my project.
There was nothing she did not urge.
The worst of all was that we might never see each other again.
"But I don't feel like that," I told her. "I feel that I must go! It's a funny feeling, I can't describe it, because it isn't exactly real. I don't feel exactly that I must go. Even when I am telling you that, it isn't exactly true."
"I am afraid this is too complicated for me," said Alice gravely.
"I admit it sounds complicated! I suppose what it really mean is that I want to go, and I am going!"