“Thanks for your hint, my dear Arnaud. I will certainly consider it,” was the other’s reply.
He handed Rigaux the big silver box of cigarettes, and when both had lit up, the footman brought, in response to his master’s summons, two tiny Bohemian liqueur glasses and filled them with fine old cognac.
They tossed them off, in Belgian fashion, and soon afterwards Rigaux gripped his friend’s hand, saying:
“Au revoir, till to-morrow. And all Belgians will thank you, Henri, for saving their capital from the Kaiser’s brigands.”
The Baron de Neuville smiled, and shrugged his thickset shoulders.
“It is but my duty as a loyal Belgian. I cannot fight side by side with our brave men, as I certainly would if I were younger. So I will help as far as my means permit.”
And then Arnaud Rigaux, with those winds in his ears, waved his hand and descended the winding stairway to the great hall, outside which in the courtyard his fast, open car was in waiting.
Having put on his holland dust-coat, he flung himself into the bucket-seat next the driver, and then they moved away cautiously down the steep hill into the peaceful valley, where the summer twilight was fast darkening into night.
Many groups of homeless, despairing people, hauling along great packages and tramping towards an unknown bourne, were upon the road, and now and then suspicious cars passed without salute or challenge.
Once they met a patrol of Uhlans riding merrily along, big-booted fellows with lances, who chatted gaily, and who seemed to take no notice of them, knowing that in that particular area there was no opposition.