pacing up and down the studio talking of Servia, Russia and the Kaiser.
This youth, too, skeptical as he generally was about everything not
connected with his own interests, appeared infected by the general
excitement.

When Desnoyers awoke he found her note awaiting him, setting their
meeting at five that afternoon and also containing a few words about the
threatened danger which was claiming the attention of all Paris. Upon
going out in search of lunch the concierge, on the pretext of welcoming
him back, had asked him the war news. And in the restaurant, the cafe
and the street, always war . . . the possibility of war with
Germany. . . .

Julio was an optimist. What did all this restlessness signify to a man
who had just been living more than twenty days among Germans, crossing
the Atlantic under the flag of the Empire?

He had sailed from Buenos Aires in a steamer of the Hamburg line, the
Koenig Frederic August. The world was in blessed tranquillity when
the boat left port. Only the whites and half-breeds of Mexico were
exterminating each other in conflicts in order that nobody might believe
that man is an animal degenerated by peace. On the rest of the
planet, the people were displaying unusual prudence. Even aboard the
transatlantic liner, the little world of passengers of most diverse
nationalities appeared a fragment of future society implanted by way of
experiment in modern times--a sketch of the hereafter, without frontiers
or race antagonisms.

One morning the ship band which every Sunday had sounded the Choral of
Luther, awoke those sleeping in the first-class cabins with the most