The spies knew that the gray column had reached Claye, had stood within fifteen miles of Paris, and then upon Paris had turned its back. They knew also that the reverberations from the direction of Meaux, that each moment grew more loud and savage, were the French "seventy-fives" whipping the gray column forward. Of what they felt the Germans did not speak. In silence they looked at each other, and in the eyes of Marie was bitterness and resolve.
Toward noon Marie met Anfossi in the great drawing-room that stretched the length of the terrace and from the windows of which, through the park gates, they could see the Paris road.
"This, that is passing now," said Marie, "is the last of our rear-guard.
Go to your tower," she ordered, "and send word that except for stragglers and the wounded our column has just passed through NeufchelIes, and that any moment we expect the French." She raised her hand impressively. "From now," she warned, "we speak French, we think French, we are French!"Anfossi, or Briand, as now he called himself, addressed her in that language. His tone was bitter. "Pardon my lese-majesty," he said, "but this chief of your Intelligence Department is a dummer Mensch. He is throwing away a valuable life."Marie exclaimed in dismay. She placed her hand upon his arm, and the violet eyes filled with concern.
"Not yours!" she protested.
"Absolutely!" returned the Italian. "I can send nothing by this knapsack wireless that they will not learn from others; from airmen, Uhlans, the peasants in the fields. And certainly I will be caught.
Dead I am dead, but alive and in Paris the opportunities are unending.
From the French Legion Etranger I have my honorable discharge. Iam an expert wireless operator and in their Signal Corps I can easily find a place. Imagine me, then, on the Eiffel Tower. From the air Isnatch news from all of France, from the Channel, the North Sea.
You and I could work together, as in Rome. But here, between the lines, with a pass from a village sous-prefet, it is ridiculous. I am not afraid to die. But to die because some one else is stupid, that is hard."Marie clasped his hand in both of hers.
"You must not speak of death," she cried; "you know I must carry out my orders, that I must force you to take this risk. And you know that thought of harm to you tortures me!"Quickly the young man disengaged his hand. The woman exclaimed with anger.
"Why do you doubt me?" she cried.
Briand protested vehemently.
"I do not doubt you."
"My affection, then?" In a whisper that carried with it the feeling of a caress Marie added softly: "My love?"The young man protested miserably. "You make it very hard, mademoiselle," he cried. "You are my superior officer, I am your servant. Who am I that I should share with others--"The woman interrupted eagerly.
"Ah, you are jealous!" she cried. "Is that why you are so cruel?
But when I tell you I love you, and only you, can you not feel it is the truth?"The young man frowned unhappily.
"My duty, mademoiselle!" he stammered.
With an exclamation of anger Marie left him. As the door slammed behind her, the young man drew a deep breath. On his face was the expression of ineffable relief.
In the hall Marie met her elderly companion, Bertha, now her aunt, Madame Benet.
"I heard you quarrelling," Bertha protested. "It is most indiscreet.
It is not in the part of the Countess d'Aurillac that she makes love to her chauffeur."Marie laughed noiselessly and drew her farther down the hall. "He is imbecile!" she exclaimed. "He will kill me with his solemn face and his conceit. I make love to him--yes--that he may work the more willingly. But he will have none of it. He is jealous of the others."Madame Benet frowned.
"He resents the others," she corrected. "I do not blame him. He is a gentleman!""And the others," demanded Marie; "were they not of the most noble families of Rome?""I am old and I am ugly," said Bertha, "but to me Anfossi is always as considerate as he is to you who are so beautiful.""An Italian gentleman," returned Marie, "does not serve in Belgian Congo unless it is--the choice of that or the marble quarries.""I do not know what his past may be," sighed Madame Benet, "nor do I ask. He is only a number, as you and I are only numbers.
And I beg you to let us work in harmony. At such a time your love-affairs threaten our safety. You must wait."Marie laughed insolently. "With the Du Barry," she protested, "Ican boast that I wait for no man."
"No," replied the older woman; "you pursue him!"Marie would have answered sharply, but on the instant her interest was diverted. For one week, by day and night, she had lived in a world peopled only by German soldiers. Beside her in the railroad carriage, on the station platforms, at the windows of the trains that passed the one in which she rode, at the grade crossings, on the bridges, in the roads that paralleled the tracks, choking the streets of the villages and spread over the fields of grain, she had seen only the gray-green uniforms. Even her professional eye no longer distinguished regiment from regiment, dragoon from grenadier, Uhlan from Hussar or Landsturm.
Stripes, insignia, numerals, badges of rank, had lost their meaning.