When, a few minutes earlier, I had heard this I stared at him, curious to see what marks so hard a stroke would leave on a man.

I saw only a grave middle-aged gentleman, very attentive to the consul who sat beside him, and very polite to us all.
Prince Scharmberg-Lippe, whom we had passed driving away from the Prefecture in his automobile as we drove to it in ours, was the last of four brothers.

The other three were killed in the first six weeks of fighting.

Our own companion, Captain Mannesmann, heard only the day before, when we stopped at Hirson--just over the border from Belgium-- that his cousin had won the Iron Cross for conspicuous courage, and within three days more was to hear that this same cousin had been sniped from ambush during a night raid down the left wing.
Nor had death been overly stingy to the members of the Staff itself.

We gathered as much from chance remarks.