Mrs. Field sat down; but the carriage was strongly built and the sides held. The slender girl came and stood by Stewart.

"What's it all about?" she asked. "Has there been a riot or something?"

"There is going to be a most awful riot," answered Stewart, "unless all signs fail. Germany is mobilizing her troops to attack France."

"To attack France! How outrageous! It's that Kaiser Wilhelm, I suppose! Well, I hope France will simply clean him up!"

"So do I!" cried her mother. "The Germans are not gentlemen. They do not know how to treat women!"

"'Kochen, Kirche und Kinder!'" quoted somebody, in a high voice.

"But see here," protested Stewart, with a glance at the bearded stranger, who was still staring steadily out of the window, "if I were you, I'd wait till I was out of Germany before saying so. It would be safer!"

"Safer!" echoed an elderly woman with a high nose. "I should like to see them harm an American!"

Stewart turned away to the window with a gesture of despair, and caught the laughing eyes of the girl who stood beside him.

"Don't blame them too much," she said. "They're not themselves. Usually they are all quite polite and well-behaved; but now they are perfectly savage. And I don't blame them. I didn't mind so much, because I'm slim and long-legged and not very dignified; but if I were a stout, elderly woman, rather proud of my appearance, I would bitterly resent being yanked out of a seat and violently propelled across a platform by a bearded ruffian with dirty hands. Wouldn't you?"

"Yes," agreed Stewart, laughing; "I should probably kick and bite and behave in a most undignified manner."

The girl leaned closer.

"Some of them did!" she murmured.

Stewart laughed again and looked at her with fresh interest. It was something to find a woman who could preserve her sense of humor under such circumstances.

"You have been doing the continent?" he asked.

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