It was strange to an American, who comes from a land where everyone learns a single language, English, that she and her ancestors, through centuries of living neighbour in a thickly-populated country to people who speak French and to French civilization, should never have learned to express themselves in any but their own tongue—­singular, almost incredible, tenacity in the age of popular education!  She would save the lance-heads and garner every grain of wheat; she economized in all but racial animosity.  This racial stubbornness of Europe—­perhaps it keeps Europe powerful in jealous competition of race with race.

The thought that went home was that she did not want the Germans to come; no Belgian wanted them; and this was the fact decisive in the scales of justice.  She said, as the officer had said, that the Germans were “out there.”  Across the fields one saw nothing on that still August day; no sign of war unless a Taube overhead, the first enemy aeroplane I had seen in war.  For the last two days the German patrols had ceased to come.  Liege, we knew, had fallen.  Looking at the map, we prayed that Namur would hold.

“Out there” beyond the quiet fields, that mighty force which was to swing through Belgium in flank was massed and ready to move when the German Staff opened the throttle.  A mile or so away a patrol of Belgian cyclists stopped us as we turned toward Brussels.  They were dust-covered and weary; the voice of their captain was faint with fatigue.  For over two weeks he had been on the hunt of Uhlan patrols.  Another schipperke he, who could not only hate but fight as best he knew how.

“We had an alarm,” he said.  “Have you heard anything?”

When we told him no, he pedalled on more slowly, and oh, how wearily! to the front.  Rather pitiful that, too, when you thought of what was “out there.”

One had learned enough to know, without the confidential information that he received, that the Germans could take Brussels if they chose.  But the people of Brussels still thronged the streets under the blankets of bunting.  If bunting could save Brussels, it was in no danger.

There was a mockery about my dinner that night.  The waiter who laid the white cloth on a marble table was unctuously suggestive as to menu.  Luscious grapes and crisp salad, which Belgian gardeners grow with meticulous care, I remember of it.  You might linger over your coffee, knowing the truth, and look out at the people who did not know it.  When they were not buying more buttons with the allied colours, or more flags, or dropping nickel pieces in Red Cross boxes, they were thronging to the kiosks for the latest edition of the evening papers, which told them nothing.

A man had to make up his mind.  Clearly, he had only to keep in his room in his hotel in order to have a great experience.  He might see the German troops enter Belgium.  His American passport would protect him as a neutral.  He could depend upon the legation to get him out of trouble.