IV
THE PICTURE AND THE STAR
THE letter which gives Julia Robins the history of that Sunday—so eventful alike for France and for Sophy—is the last word of hers from Paris. Julia attached importance to it, perhaps for its romantic flavor, perhaps because she fancied that danger threatened her friend. At any rate, she bestowed it with the care she gave to the later letters, and did not expose it to the hazards which destroyed most of its predecessors. It is dated from Marie Zerkovitch's apartment in the Rue du Bac, and it ends: "I shall stay here, whatever happens—unless Casimir tells me to meet him in Berlin!"
The rash comprehensiveness of "whatever happens" was not for times like those, when neither man nor nation knew what fate an hour held; but for three weeks more she abode with Marie Zerkovitch. Marie was much disturbed in her mind. Zerkovitch had begun to send her ominous letters from the front —or as near thereto as he could get; the burden of them was that things looked bad for the French, and that her hold on Paris should be a loose one. He urged her to go home, where he would join her—for a visit at all events, very likely to stay. Marie began to talk of going home in a week or so; but she lingered on for the sake of being nearer the news of the war. So, amid the rumors of unreal victories
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