You as a foreigner cannot stay." "I can stay or go," I replied; "but I cannot leave you and Mademoiselle in Paris." "Then what are we to do ?" I then laid before her my plan, which was simple enough in itself.
"To England ?" said Madame de Clericy, when I had finished, and in her voice I detected that contempt for our grey country which is held by nearly all Frenchwomen.

"Has it come to that?
Is France then unsafe ?" "Not yet--but it may become so.

The Germans are nearer than any one allows himself to suppose." I saw that she did not believe me.

Madame de Clericy was not very learned, and it is probable that her history was all forgotten.

Paris had always seemed to her the centre of civilisation and safely withdrawn from the perils of war or internal disorder.
I begged her to leave the capital, and painted in lurid colours the possible effects of further defeat and the resulting fall of the French Empire.
"See," I said, opening the drawer of my writing table, "I have the money here.