“I do. I shall be of some use, I hope; at any rate, I will try my best. But we can talk of that presently. First about you; are you decided?”
“I cannot say; I feel bewildered,” I replied. “I long to stay, and yet I fear it; it is not the horrors of the siege that would deter me, at least I don’t think it is that; it is the dread of being taken up as a spy.”
She burst out into one of her loud, merry laughs.
“What a ridiculous idea! Why on earth should you be taken for a spy?”
“There is no why or wherefore in the case,” I said, “that is just the alarming part of it; the people are simply mad on the point; they have barked themselves rabid about it, and they are ready to bite every one that comes in their way. Twice on my way into town this morning I heard a hue and cry raised somewhere near, and when I asked what was the matter, a mad dog, or a house on fire, the answer was, ‘Oh, no; it’s an espion they’ve started, and he’s giving them chase!’ One man said to me, half in joke, half in earnest: ‘Madame would do well to hide her fair hair under a wig; it’s dangerous to wear fair hair these times.’ I own it made me feel a little uncomfortable.”
“Well, that is not very comforting for me,” said Berthe, laughing, “my hair is blond enough to excite suspicion.”
“Oh! your nationality is written on your face,” I said; “there is no fear of you ever being mistaken for anything but a Frenchwoman.”
On arriving at the Embassy, we found a throng of British subjects waiting for their passports, and considerably surprised at being kept waiting, and expressing their surprise in no measured terms. Surely they paid dear enough for the maintenance of their embassies abroad to be entitled to prompt and proper attendance when once in a way they called on their representatives for a service of this kind! The attachés were so overworked that it was impossible to avoid the delay? Then why were there not special attachés put on for the extra press of work? And so on. Some nervous old couples were anxious to have the benefit of his excellency’s personal opinion as to the prudence of leaving their plate behind them, and, if he really thought there was a risk in so doing, would he be so kind as to suggest the safest mode of conveying it to London? Also, whether it was quite prudent to leave their money in the Bank of France and other French securities, or whether it would be advisable to withdraw it at once at a loss? Also, whether it would be a wise precaution to hang the Union Jack out of the window, those who had furnished apartments in Paris, or whether the present state of feeling between England and France was such as to make such a step rather dangerous than otherwise? It was not for outsiders to know how things stood between the two countries so as to be able to guide their course in the present crisis, but his excellency being a diplomatist was well informed on the subject, and they would rely implicitly on his judgment and advice, etc.
Berthe and I were so highly entertained by the naïve egotism and infantine stupidity displayed by the various specimens of British nature around us, that we did not find it in our hearts to grumble at being kept waiting nearly two hours.
On reaching the Rond Point of the Champs Elysées, our curiosity was attracted by a silent, scared-looking crowd collected on the sidewalk in front of the Hôtel Meyerbeer. The blinds of the house were closed as if there were a death within, and a few sergents-de-ville were standing at intervals with arms crossed, staring up at the windows. The owner of the hotel had been arrested with great noise the night before, on the strength of some foolish words which had escaped him about the possible entry of the Germans into Paris; but we neither of us knew anything of this, and I asked the nearest sergeant if anything had happened. The man turned round, and, without uncrossing his arms, bent two piercing eyes upon me—piercing is not a figure of speech, they literally stabbed us through like a pair of blades—and, after taking a deliberate view of my person from head to foot, he growled out: “Yes, something has happened. A spy has been found!” There was something so diabolical in the tone of his voice and his expression that it terrified me, and I suppose my terror got into my face and gave it a guilty hue, for another sergent-de-ville who had turned round on hearing his colleague speak, strode up to me, and said nothing, but drove another pair of eyes into me with fierce suspicion. The crowd, attracted by the incident, turned round and stared at me, and I felt as if I had that morning posted a despatch to Bismarck or Bismarck’s master betraying every state secret in France. Despair, however, that makes cowards brave, came to my rescue, and, putting a bold face on it, I said, with extraordinary pluck and coolness: