He employed his free hours between his geographical observations and his aerial contemplations in making the rounds of the stations, watching the crowds of travellers making their escape from Paris.  The sudden vision of the truth—­after the illusion which the Government had been creating with its optimistic dispatches, the certainty that the Germans were actually near when a week before they had imagined them completely routed, the taubes flying over Paris, the mysterious threat of the Zeppelins—­all these dangerous signs were filling a part of the community with frenzied desperation.  The railroad stations, guarded by the soldiery, were only admitting those who had secured tickets in advance.  Some had been waiting entire days for their turn to depart.  The most impatient were starting to walk, eager to get outside of the city as soon as possible.  The roads were black with the crowds all going in the same directions.  Toward the South they were fleeing by automobile, in carriages, in gardeners’ carts, on foot.

Argensola surveyed this hegira with serenity.  He would remain because he had always admired those men who witnessed the Siege of Paris in 1870.  Now it was going to be his good fortune to observe an historical drama, perhaps even more interesting.  The wonders that he would be able to relate in the future! . . .  But the distraction and indifference of his present audience were annoying him greatly.  He would hasten back to the studio, in feverish excitement, to communicate the latest gratifying news to Desnoyers who would listen as though he did not hear him.  The night that he informed him that the Government, the Chambers, the Diplomatic Corps, and even the actors of the Comedie Francaise were going that very hour on special trains for Bordeaux, his companion merely replied with a shrug of indifference.

Desnoyers was worrying about other things.  That morning he had received a note from Marguerite—­only two lines scrawled in great haste.  She was leaving, starting immediately, accompanied by her mother.  Adieu! . . . and nothing more.  The panic had caused many love-affairs to be forgotten, had broken off long intimacies, but Marguerite’s temperament was above such incoherencies from mere flight.  Julio felt that her terseness was very ominous.  Why not mention the place to which she was going? . . .

In the afternoon, he took a bold step which she had always forbidden.  He went to her home and talked a long time with the concierge in order to get some news.  The good woman was delighted to work off on him the loquacity so brusquely cut short by the flight of tenants and servants.  The lady on the first floor (Marguerite’s mother) had been the last to abandon the house in spite of the fact that she was really sick over her son’s departure.  They had left the day before without saying where they were going.  The only thing that she knew was that they took the train in the Gare d’Orsay.  They were going toward the South like all the rest of the rich.