“It was really too stupid of me,” I said.  “I cannot forgive myself.  I should not have come so far without asking Jarotsky for proper papers.  I am extremely sorry I have given you this trouble.  I would like to see the general and assure him I will return at once to Brussels.”  I ignored the fact that I was being taken to the general at the rate of sixty miles an hour.  The blond officer smiled uneasily and with his single glass studied the sky.  When we reached the staff he escaped from me with the alacrity of one released from a disagreeable and humiliating duty.  The staff were at luncheon, seated in their luxurious motor-cars or on the grass by the side of the road.  On the other side of the road the column of dust-covered gray ghosts were being rushed past us.  The staff, in dress uniforms, flowing cloaks, and gloves, belonged to a different race.  They knew that.  Among themselves they were like priests breathing incense.  Whenever one of them spoke to another they saluted, their heels clicked, their bodies bent at the belt line.

One of them came to where, in the middle of the road, I was stranded and trying not to feel as lonely as I looked.  He was much younger than myself and dark and handsome.  His face was smooth-shaven, his figure tall, lithe, and alert.  He wore a uniform of light blue and silver that clung to him and high boots of patent leather.  His waist was like a girl’s, and, as though to show how supple he was, he kept continually bowing and shrugging his shoulders and in elegant protest gesticulating with his gloved hands.  He should have been a moving-picture actor.  He reminded me of Anthony Hope’s fascinating but wicked Rupert of Hentzau.  He certainly was wicked, and I got to hate him as I never imagined it possible to hate anybody.  He had been told off to dispose of my case, and he delighted in it.  He enjoyed it as a cat enjoys playing with a mouse.  As actors say, he saw himself in the part.  He “ate” it.

“You are an English officer out of uniform,” he began.  “You have been taken inside our lines.”  He pointed his forefinger at my stomach and wiggled his thumb.  “And you know what that means!”

I saw playing the damn fool with him would be waste of time.

“I followed your army,” I told him, “because it’s my business to follow armies and because yours is the best-looking army I ever saw.”  He made me one of his mocking bows.

“We thank you,” he said, grinning.  “But you have seen too much.”

“I haven’t seen anything,” I said, “that everybody in Brussels hasn’t seen for three days.”

He shook his head reproachfully and with a gesture signified the group of officers.

“You have seen enough in this road,” he said, “to justify us in shooting you now.”