“He’s pure gold,” returned Trent, and then gaily: “I want you and George to come and dine with us tonight. It’s a little treat⁠—you see tomorrow is Sylvia’s fête. She will be nineteen. I have written to Thorne, and the Guernalecs will come with their cousin Odile. Fallowby has engaged not to bring anybody but himself.”

The girl accepted shyly, charging him with loads of loving messages to Sylvia, and he said goodnight.

He started up the street, walking swiftly, for it was bitter cold, and cutting across the Rue de la Lune he entered the Rue de Seine. The early winter night had fallen, almost without warning, but the sky was clear and myriads of stars glittered in the heavens. The bombardment had become furious⁠—a steady rolling thunder from the Prussian cannon punctuated by the heavy shocks from Mont Valérien.

The shells streamed across the sky leaving trails like shooting stars, and now, as he turned to look back, rockets blue and red flared above the horizon from the Fort of Issy, and the Fortress of the North flamed like a bonfire.