“Dear me!” said Vivien to herself, as the tram coursed on beyond her usual stopping place and the conductor obstinately looked the other way, “I’m glad she lived to be Lady Rossiter.  It must have given her such pleasure.  Poor thing!  And to think the knowledge that he’s a widower hardly stirs my pulses one extra beat.  And how I loved that man, seven years, six years, five years ago!  Hullo!  Where am I?  Miles from the Rue Haute!  Conducteur!  Arretez, s’il vous plait.”

CHAPTER XX

AFTER THE ARMISTICE

The Bruxellois felt very disheartened in the closing months of 1917.  The Russian revolution had brought about the collapse of Russia as an enemy of Germany; and the Germans were enabled to transport most of their troops on the Russian frontier to the west and to the Italian frontier.  Italy had lost half Venetia and enormous quantities of guns in the breach of her defences at Caporetto.  It seemed indeed at any moment, when the ice and snow of that dreadful winter of 1917-18 melted, as though Italy would share the fate of Rumania.  Though the British army had had a grand success with their Tanks, they had, ere 1917 ended, lost nearly all the ground gained round Cambrai.  Besides, the submarine menace was imperilling the British food supplies and connections with America.  As to the United States:  was their intervention going to be more than money loans and supplies of material?  Would they really supply the fighting men, the one thing at this crisis necessary to defeat Germany?

Belgium had been divided administratively into two distinct portions, north and south of the Meuse.  North of the Meuse she was to be a Dutch-speaking country either part of Germany eventually, or given to Holland to compensate her for her very benevolent neutrality towards Germany during the War.  A handful of Flemish adventurers appeared at Brussels to form the Council of Flanders, and sickened the Bruxellois by their lavish praise of the German administration and servile concurrence with all German measures.

The events of the spring of 1918 accentuated the despair in the Belgian capital.  When the Germans broke through the defences of the new lines which ran through Picardy and Champagne, reached the vicinity of Amiens, retook Soissons, and recrossed the Marne, it seemed as though Belgian independence had been lost; the utmost she could hope for would be the self-government of a German province.

But Vivie was not among the pessimists.  She discerned a smouldering discontent among the German soldiers, even when Germany seemed near to a sweeping victory over France and Britain.