“‘The outlaws of to-day are the in-laws of to-morrow,’ as the English barrister said when he married the Boer general’s daughter.  I have thought I recognized you.  I have heard you speak at Lady Maud’s and also at Lady Feenix’s Suffrage parties.  My name is Hawk.  I suppose you’ve been in prison for some Suffrage offence?  So has my aunt, for the matter of that.”

Vivie:  “Yes, but in her case they only sentenced her to the First Division; whereas I have been doing nine months’ hard.”

Hawk:  “What was your crime?”

Vivie:  “I admit nothing, it is always wisest.  But I was accused of burning down Mr. ——­’s racing stables—­and other things...”

Hawk:  “That beast.  Well, I suppose it was very wrong.  Can’t quite make up my mind about militancy, one way or the other.  But here we are up against the biggest war in history, and such peccadilloes as yours sink into insignificance.  By the bye, my aunt was amnestied and so I suppose were you?”

Vivie:  “Yes, but not so handsomely.  I was requested to go away from England for a time, so here I am, about to join my mother in Brussels—­or in a little country place near Brussels.”

Hawk:  “Well, I’ve been Secretary of Legation there.  I’m just going back to—­to—­well I’m just going back.”

At Bruges they were told that the train would not leave for Ghent and Brussels for another two hours—­some mobilization delay; so Hawk proposed they should go and see the Memlings and then have some dinner.

“Don’t you think they’re perfectly wonderful?”—­apropos of the pictures in the Hospital of St. Jean.

Vivie:  “It depends on what you mean by ‘wonderful.’  If you admire the fidelity of the reproduction in colour and texture of the Flemish costumes of the fifteenth century, I agree with you.  It is also interesting to see the revelations of their domestic architecture and furniture of that time, and the types of domestic dog, cow and horse.  But if you admire them as being true pictures of life in Palestine in the time of Christ, or in the Rhineland of the fifth century, then I think they—­like most Old Masters—­are perfectly rotten.  And have you ever remarked another thing about all paintings prior to the seventeenth century:  how plain, how ugly all the people are?  You never see a single good-looking man or woman.  Do let’s go and have that dinner you spoke of.  I’ve got a prison appetite.”

At Ghent another delay and a few uneasy rumours.  The Court was said to be removing from Brussels and establishing itself at Antwerp.  The train at last drew into the main station at Brussels half an hour after midnight.  Vivie’s mother was nowhere to be seen.  She had evidently gone back to the Villa Beau-sejour while she could.  It was too late for any tram in the direction of Tervueren.  There were no taxis owing to the drivers being called