"It won't be; don't worry, François. The Republic knows how to confront what is coming!"
"Yes. I hope we have learned something. All Frenchmen will do what is possible. As for me, I expect that my class will be called. I shall do my best, Monsieur Warner.... It is a great happiness to know that the English are with us. We must stand by those poor Belgians. Have you heard the news, Monsieur?"
"Nothing since noon."
"Ah! The Bosches are ruining everything with their artillery. Liége, Namur, are crumbling; Louvain has been swept by shells. The great cupola forts are in ruins; everything is on fire; they are shooting the people in their houses, in the streets—the dead lie everywhere—women, children, in the ditches, in the fields, on the highroads. Ah, Monsieur Warner, c'est triste, allez!"
"Where did you hear such things, François?"
"It is already common talk. The noon bulletins of the Petit Journal confirm it. They say that our fort is shelling the Uhlans of Guillaume now. They say that the forest of Ausone crawls with them."
A waiter brought their tea; the gérant bowed himself out and sent a porter to the lumber room to collect and cord up Warner's canvases.
While Philippa poured their tea, the cups began to rattle in the saucers, and the windows shivered and trembled in the increasing thunder. Twice his cup slopped over; and he was just lifting it to his lips when suddenly the very floor seemed to jump under them and a tremendous shock rocked the room.
"A big gun in the fort," said Warner, coolly forcing a smile. "I think, Philippa, as soon as you have finished——"
A terrific salvo cut him short. Somewhere he could hear a crashing avalanche of broken glass, prolonged into a tinkling cascade; then came a second's silence, then another splitting roar from the end of the street.