So loud and so close to us were the angry growlings of the guns that I felt amazed at not being able to see any smoke.
It was evident that some big encounter was going on, but the fields were green and still, and nothing at all was to be seen.
By now I had lost all sense of reality.
I was merely a figure in an extraordinary dream, in which the great guns pounded on my right hand, and the old stationmaster's omelette fried loudly on my left.
Jean strolled off alone, while two of the ladies of the party went away to buy some butter.
In Brussels, they said, it was impossible to get good butter under exorbitant prices, so they paid a visit to a little farm a few steps away, and came back presently laden with butter enough to keep them going for several weeks, for which they had paid only one franc each.
And now the old stationmaster comes out and summons us all in to lunch.
He wishes us "bon appétit" and we seat ourselves round the table under the portraits of King Albert and "la petite reine" in his little sitting-room.
A merrier lunch than that was never eaten. The vast omelette melted away in a twinkling before the terrific onslaught made upon it, chiefly by the Liège professor and the Brussels banker, who by now had got up their appetites.
The Red Cross lady, who took it upon herself to help out the food, kept up a cheerful little commentary of running compliments which included us all, and the beef-steak, and the omelette, and the potatoes, and the stationmaster, until we could hardly tell one from the other, so agreeable did we all seem!