"What!" exclaimed Warner. "Is the Ausone fort firing?"
"Since two hours, Monsieur. It would appear that affairs are warming up out there."
"What does that mean?"
"Dame—they must see something to fire at," replied the soldier, laughing. "As for us here in the town, we know nothing. We others—we never know anything that happens until it is happening to us."
"From the Château at Saïs," said Warner, "one can see three towns on fire in the north."
"It is more than we soldiers can see from here, Monsieur. Yet we know it must be so, because people from Isly, from Rosales, from Dreslin, have been passing through from the north. They must have passed through Saïs."
"Thousands," nodded Warner.
The soldier saluted; Warner lifted his cap, and he and Philippa entered the Boule d'Argent, where, in a little, lace-curtained dining-room to the left, they seated themselves by the street window and ordered tea and sugar-buns.
The gérant, who knew Warner, came up and made a most serious and elaborate bow to Philippa and to the American.
"Ah, Monsieur Warner!" he said. "Voyez-vous the Bosches have begun at last! But, God willing, it shall not be 1870 again!"