“We will not talk about these dreadful things,” she said for the third time. “We will talk about my ball. When shall we have it? Quite soon, I think, next week, perhaps. Nobody seems to be entertaining at all: I should think any night would do. I will give a big dinner first, you and Lord Grote must both come. Do you remember my last big dinner when the Princess came and was so charming? What night shall I choose, Helen?”
Helen had been thinking what to say, should this very inconvenient topic come up again.
“Do you know, I don’t think I should give a ball, Aline, if I were you,” she said. “As you say, nobody is entertaining. People don’t feel like it: everything is too deadly and serious. Many of us have lost relations: we have all lost friends.”
“But what is the difference between going to a ball and going to the theatre?” said Aline. “You told me you went to the theatre last night.”
“There is a difference.”
Aline grew excited and voluble again.
“I do not see it. You go to the theatre to amuse yourself. It is just the English hypocrisy that draws a line between such things.”
Helen laid her hand on Aline’s arm.
“You really must not talk like that,” she said. “You are doing yourself a great deal of harm when you say such things. You said other things at lunch which were very ill-advised. My dear, don’t be impatient with me. I am speaking as a friend. I know that your sympathies are being dragged this way and that, but if you want to keep your friends here, you must not talk about English hypocrisy, and English cruelty. People won’t stand it, you can’t expect them to. And for goodness’ sake don’t attempt to give a ball.”
“But I mean to. I feel sure you are wrong in your view. Everyone was glad enough to come to my house before, and I am sure they will be now. No one can have any doubt about my sympathies, or about Hermann’s either. Would he have given all those immense sums of money away to English charities, if he was not in sympathy with England? I think he has given too much: I think he ought, at any rate, to give to the German Red Cross too. It is horrible to think of English and Germans killing and wounding each other, and only helping the English. I did not think you would be so unkind and unfair, Helen. You used to be fond of Germans. You were devoted to Kuhlmann. Now I suppose you would turn your back on him, or on me, because I am partly German. If that is your idea of friendship, I am sorry for you. It is not mine. I would do anything for my friends.”