dinner we learned from the landlady that she had certain rooms
permanently reserved for the use of the Staff, and that, as these
rooms had not yet been called for that evening, we might possibly be
allowed to occupy them for the night.

At Chalons the Head-quarters are in the Prefecture, a coldly
handsome building of the eighteenth century, and there, in a
majestic stone vestibule, beneath the gilded ramp of a great festal
staircase, we waited in anxious suspense, among the orderlies and
_estafettes_, while our unusual request was considered. The result
of the deliberation, was an expression of regret: nothing could be
done for us, as officers might at any moment arrive from the General
Head-quarters and require the rooms. It was then past nine o'clock,
and bitterly cold--and we began to wonder. Finally the polite
officer who had been charged to dismiss us, moved to compassion at
our plight, offered to give us a _laissez-passer_ back to Paris. But
Paris was about a hundred and twenty-five miles off, the night was
dark, the cold was piercing--and at every cross-road and railway
crossing a sentinel would have to be convinced of our right to go
farther. We remembered the warning given us earlier in the evening,
and, declining the offer, went out again into the cold. And just
then chance took pity on us. In the restaurant we had run across a
friend attached to the Staff, and now, meeting him again in the
depth of our difficulty, we were told of lodgings to be found near
by. He could not take us there, for it was past the hour when he had
a right to be out, or we either, for that matter, since curfew
sounds at nine at Chalons. But he told us how to find our way
through the maze of little unlit streets about the Cathedral;
standing there beside the motor, in the icy darkness of the deserted
square, and whispering hastily, as he turned to leave us: "You ought
not to be out so late; but the word tonight is _Jena_. When you give
it to the chauffeur, be sure no sentinel overhears you." With that
he was up the wide steps, the glass doors had closed on him, and I
stood there in the pitch-black night, suddenly unable to believe
that I was I, or Chalons Chalons, or that a young man who in Paris
drops in to dine with me and talk over new books and plays, had been
whispering a password in my ear to carry me unchallenged to a house
a few streets away! The sense of unreality produced by that one word
was so overwhelming that for a bliss