There was Aline Gurtner, for instance, with whom she was to have stayed in that week when first war knocked all plans on the head. She had put her visit off, promising, however, to propose herself as soon as she could manage to get away from London. Aline, with her amazing joy in life, would be just the sort of person who would not permit international complications to get between her and her pleasures. Helen would telegraph to her at once and propose a visit.

She hesitated a moment after her telegram was written before she rang the bell to order it to be sent, and stood looking out of the window on to the square that basked in the September sunlight. Some instinct within her lifted up a rebellious voice reminding her of tedious things like duty and the root from which duty sprang, not arid morality, but love....

At this moment there crossed the road two wounded soldiers. One had his face bound round with bandages that crossed flat from cheek to cheek instead of projecting where his nose should be: the other, on crutches, trailed a dragging foot. Perhaps some day Robin would cross the square like that, or some day perhaps he would not cross it at all.... She turned back into the room with her written telegram in her hand, and rang the bell.

CHAPTER X

ALINE GURTNER had been more than pleased when she received Lady Grote’s telegram proposing a visit: she was entranced, for this was precisely the sort of person whom she most wanted in her house just now. During the past fortnight she had been trying to secure a gentle, cheerful trickle of visitors there, but refusals had come in rather disconcerting numbers. She could not get the tap to run. It was quite true, of course, that everyone was very busy, and that such an allegation as reason for regret might very likely be true, but she had begun to be vaguely uneasy that it was not going to be reserved for her to declare her sympathies and show an adoring England how intensely pro-English she was, but that her English friends were proceeding to demonstrate their own sympathies by omitting to flock to her biddings. As a matter of fact, her apprehensions were entirely ill-founded; such people as she had asked—they included members of the Government who really were not completely at leisure just now—had merely been too much occupied to spend perfectly idle days in the country. But the sequence of regrets had made her a little nervous. It was also unkind of people, who should have realized how beautifully she was behaving and how she felt the war, not to crowd round her and comfort her and praise her and admire her.

She ran to announce to her husband this gratifying intelligence that Helen Grote proposed herself. Sir Hermann had successfully concluded the financial operations which he had planned on the night of Aline’s great party, when he gnawed his nails, while the drowsy world still slept to the imminence of war, and had netted even more than the half-million he had anticipated. Now, in the economical bouleversement that had occurred, when good businesses were tottering and sound credits upset, he was content to look serenely on, and wonder, as so often before, how it was that so many people seemed to make a point of being just too late when they decided on action. So many of his acquaintances, heads of firms in the city, had, on that Saturday when he was so busy, taken the day off as usual, put on knickerbockers and played golf. Now it was his turn for the knickerbockers, while they slaved all day in their offices trying to avert shipwreck, or if, as in so many cases, shipwreck had occurred, to pick up such bits of their cargoes as the storm washed ashore. Meantime the options in colliery shares and shipping which he had bought in England were maturing very satisfactorily, and he was quite happy to wait and observe this mellowing process with the same sense of well-earned leisure with which he had been strolling round the kitchen garden that morning, and observing the pears ripening on the red-brick walls. Some were ripe already, and he was eating one that he had picked when Aline came in.

“My dear, Helen Grote has proposed to come and stay with us,” she cried. “Is not that delightful of her?”

He did not care two straws whether Lady Grote came or not, for when he was not at work he knew of no better mode of life than to be with Aline and the children. But the news evidently pleased Aline: she had not looked so radiant since the day when he had playfully come into her bedroom with all the sables on, and asked her if she liked his new suit. What a good joke that had been!

“I am very well satisfied to have my Aline and my imps,” said he, “but I am pleased that your friend will come.”

“Of course you are, darling,” said she. “It is just what I want. I will take care to send a little paragraph to the Morning Post. And I was writing only this morning to Mr. Boyton: I think I will telegraph instead, and ask him to come for the Sunday anyhow. I hope he will stop longer, and then you must take him out shooting. There is shooting in September, isn’t there?”