The next name to startle Mr. Britling as he sat with newspaper
and atlas following these great events was Compiegne. "Here!" Manifestly
the British were still in retreat. Then the Germans were in possession
of Laon and Rheims and still pressing south. Maubeuge surrounded and cut
off for some days, had apparently fallen....

It was on Sunday, September the sixth, that the final capitulation of
Mr. Britling's facile optimism occurred.

He stood in the sunshine reading the _Observer_ which the gardener's boy
had just brought from the May Tree. He had spread it open on a garden
table under the blue cedar, and father and son were both reading it,
each as much as the other would let him. There was fresh news from
France, a story of further German advances, fighting at Senlis--"But
that is quite close to Paris!"--and the appearance of German forces at
Nogent-sur-Seine. "Sur Seine!" cried Mr. Britling. "But where can that
be? South of the Marne? Or below Paris perhaps?"

It was not marked upon the _Observer's_ map, and Hugh ran into the house
for the atlas.

When he returned Mr. Manning was with his father, and they both looked
grave.

Hugh opened the map of northern France. "Here it is," he said.

Mr. Britling considered the position.

"Manning says they are at Rouen," he told Hugh. "Our base is to be moved
round to La Rochelle...."

He paused before the last distasteful conclusion.

"Practically," he admitted, taking his dose, "they have got Paris. It is
almost surrounded now."

He sat down to the map. Mr. Manning and Hugh stood regarding him. He
made a last effort to imagine some tremendous strategic reversal, some
stone from an unexpected sling that should fell this Goliath in the
midst of his triumph.

"Russia," he said, without any genuine hope....

Section 17

And then it was that Mr. Britling accepted the truth.

"One talks," he said, "and then weeks and months later one learns the
meaning of the things one has been saying. I was saying a month ago that
this is the biggest thing that has happened in history. I said that
this was the supreme call upon the will and resources of England. I
said there was not a life in all our empire that would not be vitally
changed by this war. I said all these things; they came through my
mouth; I suppose there was a sort of thought behind them.... Only at
this moment do I understand what it is that I said. Now--let me say it
over as if I had never said it before; thi