"And then!--" he would exclaim, and he would repeat his pantomime
of pointing his forefinger at my stomach and wiggling his thumb. He
was very popular with me.
Meanwhile they were taking me farther away from Brussels and the
"environs."
"When you picked me up," I said, "I was inside the environs, but by
the time I reach 'the' general he will see only that I am fifty miles
beyond where I am permitted to be. And who is going to tell him it
was you brought me there? You won't!"
Rupert of Hentzau only smiled like the cat that has just swallowed the
canary.
He put me in another automobile and they whisked me off, always
going farther from Brussels, to Ath and then to Ligne, a little town five
miles south. Here they stopped at a house the staff occupied, and,
leading me to the second floor, put me in an empty room that
seemed built for their purpose. It had a stone floor and whitewashed
walls and a window so high that even when standing you could see
only the roof of another house and a weather-vane. They threw two
bundles of wheat on the floor and put a sentry at the door with orders
to keep it open.
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