"AND IF THERE SHOULD BE WAR," SAID LILLIAN, SUDDENLY
"War?" cried Anita, sitting up straight.
"Yes. Mr. Kirkby thinks there are ominous signs, though Granny declares not. She will not believe it can be, but Mr. Kirkby is not so sure. It would be with Germany, of course."
Anita leaned forward more attentively. "It would be dreadful, but could it last long?"
"As you say in your Spanish: 'Quien sabe?' They would go, Bertie and all of them; they have said so. Bertie is very patriotic, and I am a soldier's daughter. I should want him to go and yet—and yet——" She turned suddenly away and flung herself on the sands face down.
Anita sat silent for a moment. It was such a friendly, pleasant scene, so many little children, so many heads of families taking their holiday. Very near her were some children with their German fraulein, such a good, painstaking, homely creature, all concern for the welfare of her charges, and never relaxing her vigilance. "Was macht, Dorot'y?" she called. "Ach, das ist shrecklich, so schmutzig die hände. Kommt hier, spät, spät, spät." Then the piping voice of the child as she ran to fling herself in the nurse's arms to be cleansed from the mud in which she had been playing, and to be sent off again with hugs and caresses and charges to leave the mud alone and play in the sand. Just such kindly, faithful creatures all over the land. One could not believe evil of a country which could produce such, a country they called Vaterland.
Lillian still lay with face hidden in her arms. Anita leaned over and touched her shoulder. "Lillian, dear, Lillian, dear," she said, softly, and Lillian sat up, dashing the tears from her eyes.
"I'm too silly for words," she cried, "but it came over me all of a sudden how I should feel to see Bertie march away."