Then Peter's two letters had come. If Peter had not told him anything that he should n't, he had probably told him a great deal more than he should. Monte, big-hearted and good, had, as a consequence of all these things, imagined himself in love. This delusion might last a week or two; and then, when he came to himself again, the rude awakening would follow. He would see her then merely as a trifler. Worse than that, he might see himself as merely a trifler. That would be deadly.
"It's you who are making it hard now," he repeated.
She had succeeded in freeing herself, leaving him before her as amazed and hurt as a spurned child.
"You're forcing me to run away from you--to run away as I did from the others," she said.
"I'm going home," she ran on. "I'm going back to my little farm, where I started."
She looked around as if for Marie. It was as if she were about to start that second.
"Marjory," he called after her. "Don't do that!"
"Wife o' mine," he cried, "there is no need of that."
"Marie!" she called as she reached the door. "Marie!"
A summer sky, warm and fragrant, suddenly became dour and overcast. Within a day thunder rolled and lightning flashed. Men glanced up in startled surprise, then clenched their jaws. Women who were laughing gayly turned suddenly white. Orders were speeded over the wires and through the clouds to the remotest hamlets of France. In a few hours men began to gather in uniform, bearing rifles. They posted themselves about the gates of stations. They increased in numbers until they were everywhere. Trumpets sounded, drums rolled. Excited groups gathered in the hotels and rushed off to the consulates. The very air was tense and vibrant.
People massed in groups. The individual no longer counted. Storekeepers, bankers, dandies, chauffeurs, postmen, gardeners, hotel proprietors became merely Frenchmen. They dropped the clothes that distinguished their caste, and became merely men in uniform.
Foreign visitors no longer counted as individuals. They ran about in panic-stricken groups like vagrant dogs. Those in uniform looked on indifferently, or gave sharp orders turning strangers back from this road or that, this gate or that. A chauffeur in uniform might turn back his millionaire foreign master.