glasses back to him.

"Well, Geronimo," he said, "having seen, what do you say?"

"The sight is unpleasant, but it is not hopeless. They call us decadent.
I read, Monsieur Scott, more than you think! Ah, it has been the
bitterness of death for Frenchmen to hear all the world say we are a
dying race, and it has been said so often that some of us ourselves had
begun to believe it! But it is not so! I tell you it is not so, and
we'll soon prove to the Germans who come that it isn't! I have looked
for a sign. I sought for it in all the skies through your glasses, but I
did not find it there. Yet I have found it."

"Where?"

"In my heart. Every beat tells me that this Paris of ours is not for the
Germans. We will yet turn them back!"

He reminded John of Lannes in his dramatic intensity, real and not
affected, a true part of his nature. Its effect, too, upon the American
was powerful. He had given courage to Lannes, and now Bougainville, that
little Apache of the Butte Montmartre, was giving new strength to his
own weakening heart. Fresh life flowed back into his veins and he
remembered that he, too, had beheld a sign, the flash of light on the
Arc de Triomphe.

"I think we have seen enough here, Geronimo," he said lightly, "and
we'll descend. I've a friend to meet later. Which way do you go from the
church?"