“Why not?  I was trained for this sort of thing.  This is my chance.”

“And the rest of us?”

The Doctor intervened.  “See here, this is forty-eight hours or more earlier than I meant this matter to come up.  I might have known the Youngster could not hold his tongue.”

“I’ve been bursting for three days.”

“Well, you’ve burst now, and I hope you are content.  There is nothing to worry about, yet.  We fellows are leaving September 1st.  The roads are all clear, and it was my idea that we should all start for Paris together early next Tuesday morning.  I don’t know what the rest of you want to do, but I advise you,” turning to the Divorcee, “to go back to the States.  You would not be a bit of good here.  You may be there.”

“You are quite right,” she replied sadly.  “I’d be worse than no good.  I’d need ‘first aid,’ at the first shot.”

“I’m going with her,” said the Sculptor.  “I’d be more useless than she would.”  And he turned a questioning look at the Lawyer.

“I must go back.  I’ve business to attend to.  Anyway, I’d be an encumbrance here.  I may be useful there.  Who knows?”

As for me, every one knew what I proposed to do, and that left every one accounted for except the Violinist.  He had been in his favorite attitude by the tree, just as he had been on that evening when it had been proposed to “tell stories,” gazing first at one and then at another, as the hurried conversation went on.

“Well,” he said, finding all eyes turned on him, “I am going to London with the Journalist—­if he is really going.”

“All right, I am,” was the reply.

“And from London I shall get to St. Petersburg.  I have a dream that out of all this something may happen to Poland.  If it does, I propose to be there.  I’ll be no good at holding a gun—­I could never fire one.  But if, by some miracle, there comes out of this any chance for the ‘Fair Land of Poland’ to crawl out, or be dragged out, from under the feet of the invader—­well, I’ll go home—­and—­and—­”

He hesitated.

“And grow up with the country,” shouted the Youngster.  “Bully for you.”

“I may only go back to fiddle over the ruins.  But who knows?  At all events, I’ll go back and carry with me all that your country had done for three generations of my family.  They’ll need it.”

“Well,” said the Doctor, “that is all settled.  Enough for to-night.  We’ll still have one or two, and it may be three days left together.  Let us make the most of them.  They will never come again.”

“And to think what a lovely summer we had planned,” sighed the Divorcee.

“Tush!” ejaculated the Doctor.  “We had a lovely time all last year.  As for this summer, I imagine that it has been far finer than what we planned.  Anyway, let us be thankful that it was this summer that we all found one another again.”

“Better go to bed,” cried the Critic; “the Doctor is getting sentimental—­a bad sign in an army surgeon.”