A young girl came into the room.  She was tall and slender, not more than seventeen, very fair, with blue eyes and hair of pure gold.  John was continually observing that while many of the French were dark and small, in accordance with foreign opinion that made them all so, many more were blonde and tall.  Lannes’ sister was scarcely more than a lovely child, but his heart beat more quickly.

Lannes kissed her on the forehead, just as he kissed his mother.

“Julie,” he said lightly and yet proudly, “this is the young American hero of whom I was telling you, my comrade in arms, or rather in the air, and adopted brother.  Mr. John Scott, my sister, Mademoiselle Julie Lannes.”

She made a shy curtsey and John bowed.  It was the first time that he was ever in the heart of an old French home, and he did not know the rules, but he felt that he ought not to offer his hand.  Young girls, he had always heard, were kept in strict seclusion in France, but the great war and the approach of the German army might make a difference.  In any event, he felt bold enough to talk to her a little, and she responded, a beautiful color coming into her face.

“Dinner is ready for our guest and you,” said Madame Lannes, and she led the way into another apartment, also with long, low windows, where the table was set.  The curtains were drawn from the windows, and John caught through one of them a glimpse of the Seine, of marching troops in long blue coats and red trousers, and of the great city, massing up beyond like a wall.

He felt that he had never before sat down to so strange a table.  The world without was shaking beneath the tread of the mightiest of all wars, but within this room was peace and quiet.  Madame was like a Roman matron, and the young Julie, though shy, had ample dignity.  John liked Lannes’ manner toward them both, his fine subordination to his mother and his protective air toward his sister.  He was glad to be there with them, a welcome guest in the family.

The dinner was served by a tall young woman.  Picard’s daughter Suzanne, to whom Lannes had referred, and she served in silence and with extraordinary dexterity one of the best dinners that he ever ate.

As the dinner proceeded John admired the extraordinary composure of the Lannes family.  Surely a woman and a girl of only seventeen would feel consternation at the knowledge that an overwhelming enemy was almost within sight of the city they must love so much.  Yet they did not refer to it, until nearly the close of the dinner, and it was Madame who introduced the subject.

“I hear, Philip,” she said, “that a bomb was thrown today from a German aeroplane into the Place de l’Opera, killing a woman and injuring several other people.”

“It is true, mother.”

John glanced covertly at Julie, and saw her face pale.  But she did not tremble.

“Is it true also that the German army is near?” asked Madame Lannes, with just the faintest quiver in her voice.