She had been crying.
"Uncle Henri may not be back for two or three days," she said, gravely.
"He is a member of parliament, as you know, and he has been called to
Brussels on account--on account of what we all hope may not come."
"War?" asked Arthur, in a hushed voice.
"It looks terribly as if war must come," she said. "And if it does, I
am afraid our poor Belgium must suffer as well as the lands that are
really concerned. We have done nothing; we want nothing except to be
left alone. If they will only do that! But I am afraid we must not
hope for that. Your uncle expects to join the army at once if there is
an invasion."
"Then we'll stay here and look after you," proposed Arthur, promptly.
"Won't we, Paul?"
"For as long as we are needed," Paul said, gravely.
It was easy enough for them to cut their dinner short that night. The
house was uneasy, stirring with a strange foreboding of what was to
come. Servants, everyone, indeed, seemed to look always toward the
east. There were the Germans. Often during the summer they drove to
Aix-la-Chapelle, the first city over the German border--Aachen, as the
Germans called it. Paul remembered, with a smile, as he thought of the
German city, how indignant he had been when he had first discovered
that the Germans invariably spoke of Liege as Luttich, and how he had
been appeased when he was told that he and most people outside of
Germany refused to adopt the German name for Aix-la-Chapelle.
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