"Not even Heraclitus divined quite the rapidity with which everything dissolves in flux," said Hazlewood. "That's another thing that will be brought home to people before the war's over—the intensity and rapidity of change, of course considerably strengthened and accelerated by the impulse that war has given to pure destruction. You can see it even in broad ideas. We began by fighting for a scrap of paper; we shall go on fighting for different ideas until we realize we are fighting for our existence. Then suddenly we shall think we are fighting about nothing, and the war will be over."
Hazlewood sat silent; most of the diners had finished and left the room, which accentuated his silence with an answering stillness.
"Well, what is to be your reward for listening?" he asked at length.
"To stay on in Nish for the present," she answered, firmly.
"No, no," he objected, with a sudden fretfulness that was the more conspicuous after his late exuberance. "No, no, we don't want more women than are necessary. You'd better get down to Salonika on Monday. Look here, I must send a telegram about that friend of yours. Come round to my office and give me the details."
Sylvia accompanied him in a state of considerable depression; she could not bear the idea of revealing so much of herself as to ask him directly to give her an excuse to remain in Nish because she wanted to see Michael; it was seeming impossible to introduce the personal element in this war-cursed town, and particularly now when she was quenching so utterly the personal element by thus allying herself with Hazlewood against Queenie. She waited while he deciphered a short telegram which had arrived during his absence and while he occupied himself with writing another.
"How will this do for their description?" he read:
"A certain Krebs known professionally as Zozo, acrobatic juggler and conjurer, alleged Swiss nationality, tall, large face, clean shaven, very large hands, speaking English well, accompanied by Queenie Walters of German origin possibly carrying stolen passport of Maud Moffat, English variety artiste. Description, slim, very fair, blue eyes, pale, delicate, speaks German, Italian, French, and English, left Bucharest at end of September. Probably traveled via Dedeagatch and Salonika. Nothing definite known against them, but man frequented company of notorious enemy agents in Bucharest and is known to be bad character. Suggest he is likely to use woman to get in touch with British officers."
"But what will they do to her?" Sylvia asked, dismayed by this metamorphosis of Queenie into a police-court case.
"Oh, they won't do anything," Hazlewood replied, irritably. "She'll be added to the great army of suspects whose histories in all their discrepancies are building up the Golden Legend of this war. She'll exist in card indexes for the rest of her life; and her reputation will circulate only a little more freely than herself. In fact, really I'm doing her a favor by putting her down for the observation of our military psychologists and criminologists; her life will become much easier henceforth. The war has not cured human nature of a passion for bric-à-brac, and as a catalogued article de virtu—or should I say de vice?—she will be well looked after."