“Oh, pardon, Monsieur Jack,” I thought it was Monsieur West; then blushing furiously; “oh, I see you have heard! Oh, thank you so much for your wishes, and I’m sure we love each other very much,—and I’m dying to see Sylvia and tell her and———”
“And what,” laughed Trent.
“I am very happy,” she sighed.
“He’s pure gold,” returned Trent, and then gayly: “I want you and George to come and dine with us to-night. It’s a little treat,—you see to-morrow is Sylvia’s fête. She will be nineteen. I have written to Thorn, and the Guernalecs will come with their cousin Odile. Fallowby has engaged not to bring anybody but himself.”
The girl accepted shyly, charging him with loads of loving messages to Sylvia, and he said good-night.
He started up the street, walking swiftly for it was bitter cold, and cutting across the rue de la Lune he entered the rue de Seine. The early winter night had fallen, almost without warning, but the sky was clear and myriads of stars glittered in the heavens. The bombardment had become furious—a steady rolling thunder from the Prussian cannon punctuated by the heavy shocks from Mont Valérien.
The shells streamed across the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, and now, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above the horizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North flamed like a bonfire.
“Good news!” a man shouted over by the Boulevard St. Germain. As if by magic the streets were filled with people,—shivering, chattering people with shrunken eyes.
