"And it's a long story. I
don't like them."
* * * * *
"Go away!" said France restlessly, pushing at the new nations in her
bosom. "It's all done. Go back again!"
"Are you an Ally?" said the Allies to each other balefully, their eyes
no longer lit by battle, but irritable with disillusion--and each told
his women tales of the other's shortcomings.
Along the sides of the roads, in the gutters, picking the dust-heap of
the battlefields, there were representatives of other nations who did
not join in the inter-criticism of the lords of the earth. Chinese,
Arabs and Annamites made signs and gibbered, but none cared whether they
were in amity or enmity.
Only up in Germany was there any peace from acrimony. _There_ the Allies
walked contentedly about, fed well, looked kindly at each other. _There_
were no epithets to fling--they had all been flung long ago.
And the German people, looking curiously back, begged buttons as
souvenirs from the uniforms of the men who spoke so many different
languages.
CHAPTER XVI
THE ARDENNES
The day wore on--
The sun came lower and nearer, till the half-light ran with her half-
thought, dropping, sinking, dying. "Guise," said the signpost, and
a battlement stared down and threw its shadow across her face. "Is that
where the dukes lived?" She was a speck in the landscape, moving on
wheels that were none of her invention, covering distances of hundreds
of miles without amazement, upon a magic mount unknown to her
forefathers.
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