On the twenty-third came the news of the fall of the forts at Namur; again giving warning that an unprecedented power of destruction had broken loose in the world.  A few days later the story of the wiping out of the ancient and peaceful seat of learning at Louvain made it clear that this force was being directed toward incredible ends.  By this time, too, the papers were full of accounts of the destruction of civilian populations.  Something new, and certainly evil, was at work among mankind.  Nobody was ready with a name for it.  None of the well-worn words descriptive of human behaviour seemed adequate.  The epithets grouped about the name of “Attila” were too personal, too dramatic, too full of old, familiar human passion.

One afternoon in the first week of September Mrs. Wheeler was in the kitchen making cucumber pickles, when she heard Claude’s car coming back from Frankfort.  In a moment he entered, letting the screen door slam behind him, and threw a bundle of mail on the table.

“What do you, think, Mother?  The French have moved the seat of government to Bordeaux!  Evidently, they don’t think they can hold Paris.”

Mrs. Wheeler wiped her pale, perspiring face with the hem of her apron and sat down in the nearest chair.  “You mean that Paris is not the capital of France any more?  Can that be true?”

“That’s what it looks like.  Though the papers say it’s only a precautionary measure.”

She rose.  “Let’s go up to the map.  I don’t remember exactly where Bordeaux is.  Mahailey, you won’t let my vinegar burn, will you?”

Claude followed her to the sitting-room, where her new map hung on the wall above the carpet lounge.  Leaning against the back of a willow rocking-chair, she began to move her hand about over the brightly coloured, shiny surface, murmuring, “Yes, there is Bordeaux, so far to the south; and there is Paris.”

Claude, behind her, looked over her shoulder.  “Do you suppose they are going to hand their city over to the Germans, like a Christmas present?  I should think they’d burn it first, the way the Russians did Moscow.  They can do better than that now, they can dynamite it!”

“Don’t say such things.”  Mrs. Wheeler dropped into the deep willow chair, realizing that she was very tired, now that she had left the stove and the heat of the kitchen.  She began weakly to wave the palm leaf fan before her face.  “It’s said to be such a beautiful city.  Perhaps the Germans will spare it, as they did Brussels.  They must be sick of destruction by now.  Get the encyclopaedia and see what it says.  I’ve left my glasses downstairs.”

Claude brought a volume from the bookcase and sat down on the lounge.  He began:  “Paris, the capital city of France and the Department of the Seine,—­shall I skip the history?”

“No.  Read it all.”

He cleared his throat and began again:  “At its first appearance in history, there was nothing to foreshadow the important part which Paris was to play in Europe and in the world,” etc.