“And they will?”
“Yes, I should think that is inevitable. And you know there’s something big about it. I’m not warlike, you know, but I could not fail to be a soldier under these new conditions, any more than I could continue being a soldier when all it meant was to be ornamental. Hermann in bursts of pride and patriotism used to call us toy-soldiers. But he’s wrong now; we’re not going to be toy-soldiers any more.”
She did not answer him, but he felt her hand press close in the palm of his.
“I can’t tell you how I dreaded we shouldn’t go to war,” he said. “That has been a nightmare, if you like. It would have been the end of us if we had stood aside and seen Germany violate a solemn treaty.”
Even with Michael close to her, the call of her blood made itself audible to Sylvia. Instinctively she withdrew her hand from his.
“Ah, you don’t understand Germany at all,” she said. “Hermann always felt that too. He told me he felt he was talking gibberish to you when he spoke of it. It is clearly life and death to Germany to move against France as quickly as possible.”
“But there’s a direct frontier between the two,” said he.
“No doubt, but an impossible one.”
Michael frowned, drawing his big eyebrows together.
“But nothing can justify the violation of a national oath,” he said. “That’s the basis of civilisation, a thing like that.”