Michael was silent, and Hermann spoke again.
“And if there is trouble with Russia, France, I take it, is bound to join her. And if France joins her, what will England do?”
The great shadow of the approaching storm fell over Michael, even as outside 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 to me. 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. It counts first. Nothing, nobody, not even Sylvia or my mother or you can stand 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 wrong about it all—about the gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhaps in a few days I may come racing home again. Yes, I said ‘home,’ didn’t I? Well, that shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can’t help going.”
Hermann’s hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To Michael the world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly grown sinister, of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all the ground of this ominous depression which had darkened round him, was conjectural and speculative, that diplomacy, backed by the horror of war which surely all civilised nations and responsible govermnents must share, had, so far from saying its last, not yet said its first word; that the wits of all the Cabinets of Europe were at this moment only just beginning to stir themselves so as to secure a peaceful solution; but, in spite of this, the darkness and the nightmare grew in intensity. But as to Hermann’s determination to go to Germany, which made this so terribly real, since it was beginning to enter into practical everyday life, he had neither means nor indeed desire to combat it. He saw perfectly clearly that Hermann must go.
“I don’t want to dissuade you,” he said, “not only because it would be useless, but because I am with you. You couldn’t do otherwise, Hermann.”
“I don’t see that I could. Sylvia agrees too.”
A terrible conjecture flashed through Michael’s mind.