It was half past twelve.  I made such concessions to the occasion as my travelling bag permitted, and, prompt to the minute, General Huguet’s car drew up at the inn door.  It was a wonderful car.  I used it all that afternoon and the next day, and I can testify both to its comfort and to its speed.  I had travelled fast in cars belonging to the Belgian and French staffs, but never have I gone as I did in that marvel of a car.  Somewhere among my papers I have a sketch that I made of the interior of the limousine body, with the two soldier-chauffeurs outside in front, the two carbines strapped to the speedometer between the vis-a-vis seats inside the car, and the speedometer registering ninety kilometres and going up.

We went at once to British Headquarters, with its sentries and its flag; a large house, which had belonged to a notary, its grim and forbidding exterior gave little promise of the comfort within.  A passage led to a square centre hall from which opened various rooms—­a library, with a wood fire, the latest possible London and Paris papers, a flat-topped desk and a large map; a very large drawing-room, which is Sir John French’s private office, with white walls panelled with rose brocade, a marble mantel, and a great centre table, covered, like the library desk, with papers; a dining room, wainscoted and comfortable.  There were other rooms, which I did not see.  In the square hall an orderly sat all day, waiting for orders of various sorts.

Colonel Fitzgerald greeted me amiably.  He regretted that Sir John French was absent, and was curious as to how I had penetrated to the fastnesses of British Headquarters without trouble.  Now and then, glancing at him unexpectedly during the excellent luncheon that followed, I found his eyes fixed on me thoughtfully, intently.  It was not at all an unfriendly gaze.  Rather it was the look of a man who is painstakingly readjusting his mental processes to meet a new situation.

He made a delightful host.  I sat at his right.  At the other end of the table was General Huguet, and across from me a young English nobleman, attached to the field marshal’s staff, came in, a few minutes late, and took his place.  The Prince of Wales, who lives there, had gone to the trenches the day before.

Two soldier-servants served the meal.  There was red wine, but none of the officers touched it.  The conversation was general and animated.  We spoke of public opinion in America, of the resources of Germany and her starvation cry, of the probable length of the war.  On this opinions varied.  One of the officers prophesied a quick ending when the Allies were finally ready to take the offensive.  The others were not so optimistic.  But neither here, nor in any of the conversations I have heard at the headquarters of the Allies, was there a doubt expressed as to ultimate victory.  They had a quiet confidence that was contagious.  There was no bluster, no assertion; victory was simply accepted as a fact; the only two opinions might be as to when it would occur, and whether the end would be sudden or a slow withdrawal of the German forces.