FOR thirty seconds no one moved.

An odd sort of paralysis seemed to have gripped every one in the room,—paralysis of the mind as well as of the body.

Then puzzled, wondering looks were exchanged.

A man sitting near the fireplace glanced sharply, apprehensively at the huge beams in the ceiling and muttered:

“What was it! Sounded as though something had smashed in the roof. There’s a tremendous wind. It may have got that big tree at the corner of the locker room.”

“It couldn’t have been thunder,—not at this time of the year,” said one of the women, sending a nervous, frightened look at her husband who sprawled ungracefully in a big Morris chair at the end of a table littered with newspapers and magazines.

“‘Gad, did you feel the house rock?” exclaimed he, sitting up suddenly, his eyes narrowing as with pain. “Like an earthquake.

“It couldn’t have been an earthquake,” interrupted his wife, starting up from her chair.

“Why couldn’t it?” he demanded crossly, and then glanced around at the other occupants of the room,—ten or a dozen men and women seated in a wide semi-circle in front of the huge logs blazing in the fireplace. “What do you think it was, Zimmie?”

“We’ll find part or all of the roof gone,” answered the man addressed. As he spoke, he rose quickly and started across the room in the direction of the door leading to the steward’s pantry. “I’ll have a look from the back of the—”

He stopped short. The dull, ripping crash that had startled them was repeated, this time a little louder and more prolonged than before. The club-house shook. Several of the men sprang to their feet in alarm. A look of comprehension shot among them.

“By Gad! An explosion!” cried one of them. “The damned beasts!”

“The Reynolds Works!” cried another, gripping the back of his chair with tense fingers. “Sure as you’re alive! It’s only a few miles from here. Nothing else could have—”

“Let’s go home, Ned. The children—something may have happened—you never can tell—”

“Don’t get excited, Betty,” cried the man in the Morris chair. She was shaking his arm. “The children are in New York, twenty miles away. They’re all right, old girl. Lord! What a smash it was!”

The group was silent, waiting with bated breath for the third and perhaps more shocks to come.

The club steward came into the room, bearing a tray of bottles and glasses. His face was ashen; there was a set expression about it, as one who controls his nerves with difficulty.

“Did you hear it, Peter?” was the innocuous inquiry of one of the men, a dapper young fellow in corduroys.

“Yes, Mr. Cribbs. I thought at first it was the roof, sir. The chef said it was the big chimney—”

“Never mind the drinks, Peter,” said a tall, greyish man as the steward placed the glasses on the table. “We’ve lost what little thirst we had. Where are the Reynolds Works from here?”

Peter looked surprised. “South, sir,—beyond the hills. About five miles, I should say, Mr. Carstairs.”

“And which way is south?” inquired one of the women. “I am always turned around when I am in the country.” She was a singularly pallid, clear-featured woman of perhaps forty-five. One might surmise that at twenty she had been lovely, even exquisite.

“This way, Mrs. Carstairs,” said the steward, starting toward the windows at the lower end of the lounge.

The man who had been addressed as Zimmie was already at one of the broad windows, peering out into the black, windy night.

“Can’t see a thing,” he said, as the others crowded about him. “The shops are off there in a direct line with the home green, I should say.”

“I happen to know that the Allies have a fifteen million dollar contract with the Reynolds people,” said Carstairs, looking hard into the blackness.

“If they’d string up a few of these infernal—There! See the glow coming up over the hill? She’s afire! And with this wind,—‘gad, she’ll go like waste paper! My God, I wish the whole German Army was sitting on top of those buildings right now.” It was little Mr. Cribbs who spoke. He was shaking like a leaf.

“I’d rather see a million or two of these so-called German-Americans sitting there, Cribbs,” said Carstairs, between his teeth. “There’d be some satisfaction in that.”

His wife nudged him sharply. He turned and caught the warning look in her eye and the slight movement of her head in the direction of the man called Zimmie.

“Oh, that’s all right,” cried Carstairs carelessly. “You needn’t punch me, dear. Zimmie ‘s as good an American as any of us. Don’t think for a moment, Zimmie, old chap, that I include you in the gang I’d like to see sitting on that pile of shells over there.”

The man at the window turned, and smiled affably.

“Thanks, old man. Being, as you say, as good an American as any of you, I may be permitted to return the compliment. I shouldn’t like to see Mrs. Carstairs sitting on that pile of shells.”

Carstairs flushed. An angry light leaped to his eyes, but it was banished almost instantly. Mrs. Carstairs herself replied.

“I can’t imagine anything more distasteful,” she drawled.

“But Mrs. Carstairs isn’t a German,” put in little Mr. Cribbs, somewhat tartly for him.

“You’re always saying the wrong thing, Cribbs,—or the right thing at the wrong time,” said Carstairs. “Mrs. Carstairs is not German. Her father and mother were, however. She’s in the same fix as Zimmerlein, and she isn’t ashamed of it any more than Zimmie is.”

“I had—er—no idea that Mrs. Carstairs was—”

“What were your parents, Mr. Cribbs?” asked Mrs. Carstairs calmly.

“Nebraskans,” said Cribbs, stiffening. “My grandfather was a Welshman.”

“And so you have absolutely nothing to reproach yourself with,” said she. “How fortunate in these days.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Carstairs, if I—”

“I was born in the United States,” she said, without a trace of annoyance, “but not in Nebraska. You have the advantage of me there, I fear. And of poor Mr. Zimmerlein, too. He was born in Boston,—were you not?”

“In Marlborough Street,” said Zimmerlein, drily. “My father was Irish, as you can tell by me name, and me poor mither was Irish too. Her name before marriage was Krausshof.” Mr. Cribbs’s face was scarlet. To cover his confusion, he wedged his way a little closer to the windows and glared at the dull red light that crept slowly out of the darkness off to the south. The crests of the hills were beginning to take shape against a background shot with crimson.

“Just the same,” he muttered, “I’d like to see the men who are responsible for that fire over there burning in hell.”

“I think we can agree on that point, at least, Mr. Cribbs,” said Zimmerlein, with dignity.

“Who wants to run over there with me in my car?” cried the other, excitedly. “It’s only a few miles, and it must be a wonderful sight. I can take six or seven—”

“Stay where you are, Cribbs,” said Carstairs sharply. “When those shells begin to go off—Why, man alive, there’s never been anything on the French front that could hold a candle to it. Don’t forget what happened when Black Tom pier was blown up. Pray do not be alarmed, ladies. There isn’t the slightest dan............