“True. But they are at least scientific in their campaign. The English are not.”
“Well, Arnaud, if you continue to talk like that I shall begin to agree with Aimée, and accuse you of taking the German side,” laughed her father.
“Diable! I hate them too much. Look what I have lost—what I stand to further lose—eh?” protested the thin-faced man, with a quick gesture of the hands. “All I hope is that the English army will be in Belgium before the enemy enters Brussels.”
“But the French,” suggested the Baron. “What are they doing? One hears so very little of General Joffré and his army!”
“Ah! he, too, is moving slowly. At Verdun, and along the line of Alsace-Lorraine, there has been some fierce fighting, I hear.”
“How do you know?” asked the girl.
“By the papers.”
“But the papers have published no reports,” she said in surprise. “What journal has given the news? We have them all, and I read them very carefully.”
Again Rigaux was, for a second, nonplussed.
“Oh! I think it was in the Antwerp Matin—the day before yesterday—if I recollect aright.”