Monsieur Segotin's Story
my bones that we were in for it. Of course to the little ones I made light of the threat of war. They would not have gone else. Women do not see things always clearly. It was a good opportunity, I told them, for the visit so long promised to their aunt in England. I could do without them easily. This silly talk of war had driven people from Blankenberghe. I took in a young fellow of the town to help and I sent them off, promising to come and fetch them home in a few weeks. But what does it matter how I managed it. I managed it. And when their steamboat had got out to sea—well, then I was able at last to breathe a little freely. It was like a weight off my chest. I wrote a letter to my sister telling her to keep them with her until further notice, and then I posted it and then I took the tram back to Blankenberghe. That was done. It only remained to see what should happen."
"And you?" I asked. "You did not think it well to go to England also?"
"I?" he said. "Oh, I am an old man. I have lived most of my life. And if war was coming into Belgium it was not the time for Belgians to be going away. There would be plenty to do for anybody who should have a head on his shoulders. And at the worst of it they could only kill me. But, my good Monsieur, any country where those people should come in war was a place for women to be out of. They were bad in 1870 in France; but now they had forty more years of their philosophy behind them, and what happened in France in 1870
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