Great days. Fateful days. Terrible days.
One Friday night early in December I received a note from Norman, asking me to meet him for dinner at "Arcadia." I had not seen him for six months, but his debonair charm was as potent as ever, and we chatted of the past like friends who had not met for years. As if by mutual consent, we avoided the present until I noticed that the orchestra was different.
"Where is Klotz?" I asked suddenly.
"Gone."
"Where?"
"To the war. He was a German reservist and got away."
"And his wife?"
"She is confined to her bed all the time, but fortunately there is an excellent woman looking after her and young Siegfried. By the way, what a conductor he'll make some day!"
By the subterfuge I knew who was paying for the woman, though his income was always slender. Stimulated by a British-born orchestra that played with a respectability beyond question, we pursued bubbles of conversation for half-an-hour, saying many clever things and arriving at no conclusions; but both of us knew that, behind the badinage, there was the consciousness of war gripping our brains like a fever.
"What do you think," I said at last, "of the question of enlisting?" It would have been a mockery to deny the fever any longer.