Michael

isn't she who is angry: it's justher malady."

  "Yes, my dear," said Lady Barbara. "I am so glad you see it like that."

  "How else could I see it? It was my real mother whom I began to knowlast Christmas, and whom I was with in town for the three months thatfollowed. That's how I think of her: I can't think of her as anythingelse."

  "And how is she otherwise?"

  Again he shook his head.

  "She is wretched, though they say that all she feels is dim and veiled,that we mustn't think of her as actually unhappy. Sometimes there aregood days, when she takes a certain pleasure in her walks and in lookingafter a little plot of ground where she gardens. And, thank God, thatsudden outburst when she tried to kill me seems to have entirely passedfrom her mind. They don't think she remembers it at all. But then thegood days are rare, and are growing rarer, and often now she sits doingnothing at all but crying."

  Aunt Barbara laid her hand on him.

  "Oh, my dear," she said.

  Michael paused for a moment, his brown eyes shining.

  "If only she could come back just for a little to what she was inJanuary," he said. "She was happier then, I think, than she ever wasbefore. I can't help wondering if anyhow I could have prolonged thosedays, by giving myself up to her more completely."

  "My dear, you needn't wonder about that," said Aunt Barbara. "Sir Jamestold me that it was your love and nothing else at all that gave herthose days."

  Michael's lips quivered.

  "I can't tell you what they were to me," he said, "for she and I foundeach other then, and we both felt we had missed each other so much andso long. She was happy then, and I, too. And now everything hasbeen taken from her, and still, in spite of that, my cup is full tooverflowing."

  "That's how she would have it, Michael," said Barbara.

  "Yes, I know that. I remind myself of that."

  Again he paused.

  "They don't think she will live very long," he said. "She is gettingphysically much weaker. But during this last week or two she has beenless unhappy, they think. They say some new change may come any time:it may be only the great change--I mean her death; but it is possiblebefore that that her mind will clear again. Sir James told me thatoccasionally happened, like--like a ray of sunlight after a stormy day.It would be good if that happened. I would give almost anything to feelthat she and I were together again, as we were."

  Barbara, childless, felt something of motherhood. Michael's simplicityand his sincerity were already known to her, but she had never yetknown the strength of him. You could lean on Michael. In his quiet,undemonstrative way he supported you completely, as a son should; therewas no possibility of insecurity. . . .

  "God bless you, my dear," she said.

  CHAPTER XIII

  One close thundery morning about a week later, Michael was sitting athis piano in his shirtsleeves, busy practising. He was aware that at theother end of the room the telephone was calling for him, but it seemedto be of far greater importance at the minute to finish the last page ofone of the Bach fugues, than to attend to what anybody else might haveto say to him. Then it suddenly flashed across him that it might beSylvia who wanted to speak to him, or that there might be news about hismother, and his fingers leaped from the piano in the middle of a bar,and he ran and slid across the parquet floor.

  But it was neither of these, and compared to them it was a case of"only" Hermann who wanted to see him. But Hermann, it appeared, wantedto see him urgently, and, if he was in (which he was) would be with himin ten minutes.

  But the Bach thread was broken, and Michael, since it was not worthwhile trying to mend it for the sake of these few minutes, sat down bythe open window, and idly took up the morning paper, which as yet he hadnot opened, since he had hurried over breakfast in order to get to hispiano. The music announcements on the outside page first detained him,and seeing that the concert by the Falbes, which was to take place infive or six days, was advertised, he wondered vaguely whether it wasabout that that Hermann wanted to see him, and, if so, why he could nothave said whatever he had to say on the telephone, instead of cuttingthings short with the curt statement that he wished to see him urgently,and would come round at once. Then remembering that Francis had beenplaying cricket for the Guards yesterday, he turned briskly over to thelast page of sporting news, and found that his cousin had distinguishedhimself by making no runs at all, but by missing two expensive catchesin the deep field. From there, after a slight inspection of a coupleof advertisement columns, he worked back to the middle leaf, where wereleaders and the news of nations and the movements of kings. All thislast week he had scanned such items with a growing sense of amusementin the recollection of Hermann's disquiet over the Sarajevo murders,and Aunt Barbara's more detailed and vivid prognostications of comingdanger, for nothing more had happened, and he supposed--vaguely only,since the affair had begun to fade from his mind--that Austria hadmade inquiries, and that since she was satisfied there was no publicpronouncement to be made.

  The hot breeze from the window made the paper a little unmanageable fora moment, but presently he got it satisfactorily folded, and a big blackheadline met his eye. A half-column below it contained the demands whichAustria had made in the Note addressed to the Servian Government.A glance was sufficient to show that they were framed in the mosttruculent and threatening manner possible to imagine. They were notthe reasonable proposals that one State had a perfect right to makeof another on whose soil and with the connivance of whose subjects themurders had been committed; they were a piece of arbitrary dictation, athreat levelled against a dependent and an inferior.

  Michael had read them through twice with a growing sense of uneasinessat the thought of how Lady Barbara's first anticipations had beenfulfilled, when Hermann came in. He pointed to the paper Michael held.

  "Ah, you have seen it," he said. "Perhaps you can guess what I wanted tosee you about."

  "Connected with the Austrian Note?" asked Michael.

  "Yes."

  "I have not the vaguest idea."

  Hermann sat down on the arm of his chair.

  "Mike, I'm going back to Germany to-day," he said. "Now do youunderstand? I'm German."

  "You mean that Germany is at the back of this?"

  "It is obvious, isn't it? Those demands couldn't have been made withoutthe consent of Austria's ally. And they won't be granted. Servia willappeal to Russia. And . . . and then God knows what may happen. In theevent of that happening, I must be in my Fatherland ready to serve, ifnecessary."

  "You mean you think it possible you will go to war with Russia?" askedMichael.

  "Yes, I think it possible, and, if I am right, if there is thatpossibility, I can't be away from my country."

  "But the Emperor, the fire-engine whom you said would quench anyconflagration?"

  "He is away yachting. He went off after the visit of the British fleetto Kiel. Who knows whether before he gets back, things may have gonetoo far? Can't you see that I must go? Wouldn't you go if you were me?Suppose you were in Germany now, wouldn't you hurry home?"

  Michael was silent, and Hermann spoke again.

  "And if there is trouble with Russia, France, I take it, is bound tojoin her. And if France joins her, what will England do?"

  The great shadow of the approaching storm fell over Michael, even asoutside the sultry stillness of the morning grew darker.

  "Ah, you think that?" asked Michael.

  Hermann put his hand on Michael's shoulder.

  "Mike, you're the best friend I have," he said, "and soon, please God,you are going to marry the girl who is everything else in the world tome. You two make up my world really--you two and my mother, anyhow.No other individual counts, or is in the same class. You know that,I expect. But there is one other thing, and that's my nationality. Itcounts first. Nothing, nobody, not even Sylvia or my mother or you canstand between me and that. I expect you know that also, for you saw,nearly a year ago, what Germany is to me. Perhaps I may be quite wrongabout it all--about t
he gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhapsin a few days I may come racing home again. Yes, I said 'home,' didn'tI? Well, that shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can't helpgoing."

  Hermann's hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To Michaelthe world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly grown sinister,of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all the ground of thisominous depression which had darkened round him, was conjectural andspeculative, that diplomacy, backed by the horror of war which surelyall civilised nations and responsible govermnents must share, had, sofar from saying its last, not yet said its first word; that the wits ofall the Cabinets of Europe were at