The
most impatient were starting to walk, eager to get outside of the city
as soon as possible. The roads were black with the crowds all going in
the same directions. Toward the South they were fleeing by automobile,
in carriages, in gardeners' carts, on foot.
Argensola surveyed this hegira with serenity. He would remain because he
had always admired those men who witnessed the Siege of Paris in 1870.
Now it was going to be his good fortune to observe an historical drama,
perhaps even more interesting. The wonders that he would be able to
relate in the future! . . . But the distraction and indifference of his
present audience were annoying him greatly. He would hasten back to the
studio, in feverish excitement, to communicate the latest gratifying
news to Desnoyers who would listen as though he did not hear him.
The night that he informed him that the Government, the Chambers, the
Diplomatic Corps, and even the actors of the Comedie Francaise were
going that very hour on special trains for Bordeaux, his companion
merely replied with a shrug of indifference.
Desnoyers was worrying about other things. That morning he had received
a note from Marguerite--only two lines scrawled in great haste. She was
leaving, starting immediately, accompanied by her mother. Adieu! . . .
and nothing more. The panic had caused many love-affairs to be
forgotten, had broken off long intimacies, but Marguerite's temperament
was above such incoherencies from mere flight.
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