“The earth shakes too much,” said Lannes in a droll tone.  “I think we’d better go back into the unchanging ether, where a man can be sure of himself.”

“I’m seasick,” said John; “who wouldn’t be, with ten thousand cannon, more or less, and a million or two of rifles shaking the planet?  I’m going into the house as fast as I can.”

It was a building, centuries old, of gray crumbling stone, with large, low rooms, and, to John’s amazement, the peasant who inhabited it and his family were present.  The farmer and his wife, both strong and dark, were about forty, and there were four children, the oldest a girl of about thirteen.  What fear they may have felt in the morning was gone now, and, as they knew that the French army was advancing, a joy, reserved but none the less deep, had taken its place.

John and Lannes sat down at a small table covered with a neat white cloth, and Madame, walking quickly and lightly, served them with bread, cold meat and light red wine.  The smaller children hovered in the background and looked curiously at the young foreigner who wore the French uniform.

“May I ask your name, Madame?” John asked politely.

“Poiret,” she said.  “My man is Jules Poiret, and this farm has been in his family since the great revolution.  You and your comrade came from the air, as I saw, and you can tell us, can you not, whether the Poiret farm is to become German or remain French?  The enemy has been pushed back today, but will he come so near to Paris again?  Tell me truly, on your soul, Monsieur!”

“I don’t believe the Germans will ever again be so near to Paris,” replied John with sincerity.  “My friend, who is the great Philip Lannes, the flying man, and I, have looked down upon a battle line fifty, maybe a hundred miles long, and nearly everywhere the Germans are retreating.”

She bent her head a little as she poured the coffee for them, but not enough to hide the glitter in her eye.  “Perhaps the good God intervened at the last moment, as Father Hansard promised he would,” she said calmly.  “At any rate, the Germans are gone.  I gathered as much from chance words of the generals—­never before have so many generals gathered under the Poiret roof, and it will never happen again—­but I wished to hear it from one who had seen with his own eyes.”

“We saw them withdrawing, Madame, with these two pairs of eyes of ours,” said Lannes.

“And then Poiret can go back to his work with the vines.  Whether it is war or peace, men must eat and drink, Monsieur.”

“But certainly, Madame, and women too.”  “It is so.  I trust that soon the Germans will be driven back much faster.  The house quivers all the time.  It is old and already several pieces of plaster have fallen.”

Her anxiety was obvious.  With the Germans driven back she thought now of the Poiret homestead.  John, in the new strength that had come to him from food and drink, had forgotten for the moment that ceaseless quiver of the earth.  He held the little bottle aloft and poured a thin stream of wine into his glass.  The red thread swayed gently from side to side.