“Acquaintanceship seems to grow rapidly with you, Monsieur Jean the Scott.”

“It has, but you must remember that our own friendship was pretty sudden.  It developed in a few minutes of flight from soldiers at the German border.”

“That is so, but it was soon sealed by great common dangers.  Who is your new friend, John?”

“A little Apache named Pierre Louis Bougainville, whom I have nicknamed Geronimo, after a famous Indian chief of my country.  He has already gone to fight for France, and, Philip, he made an extraordinary impression upon me, although I don’t know just why.  He is short like Napoleon, he has the same large and beautifully shaped head, and the same penetrating eyes that seem able to look you through and through.  Maybe it was a spark of genius in him that impressed me.”

“It may be so,” said Lannes thoughtfully.  “It was said, and said truly that the First Republic meant the open career to all the talents, and the Third offers the same chance.  One never can tell where military genius is going to appear and God knows we need it now in whatever shape or form it may come.  Did you hear of the bomb?”

“I saw it fall.  But, Phil, I don’t see the object in such attacks.  They may kill a few people, nearly always the unarmed, but that has no real effect on a war.”

“They wish to spread terror, I suppose.  Lend me your glasses, John.”

Lannes studied the heavens a long time, minutely examining every black speck against the blue, and John stood beside him, waiting patiently.  Meanwhile the throng of fleeing people moved on as before, silent and somber, even the children saying little.  John was again stirred by the deepest emotion of sympathy and pity.  What a tremendous tragedy it would be if New York were being abandoned thus to a victorious foe!  Lannes himself had seemed to take no notice of the flight, but John judged he had made a powerful effort of the will to hide the grief and anger that surely filled his heart.

“I don’t see anything in the air but our own machines,” said Lannes, as he returned the glasses.  “It was evidently a dash by the Taube that threw the bomb.  But we’ve stayed here long enough.  They’re waiting for us at home.”

He led the way through the multitude, relapsing into silence, but casting a glance now and then at his own peculiar field, the heavens.  They reached the Place de la Concorde, and stopped there a moment or two.  Lannes looked sadly at the black drapery hanging from the stone figure that typified the lost city of Strassburg, but John glanced up the great sweep of the Place to the Arc de Triomphe, where he caught again the glittering shaft of sunlight that he had accepted as a sign.

“We may be looking upon all this for the last time,” said Lannes, in a voice of grief.  “Oh, Paris, City of Light, City of the Heart!  You may not understand me, John, but I couldn’t bear to come back to Paris again, much as I love it, if it is to be despoiled and ruled by Germans.”