“I take that half-crown. I can’t bear the thought of Germany being smashed up. I spent three months there last year, and I loved them.”
“As much as you hate the English?”
“Just about. I hope to goodness we shall be sensible and keep out of it. Germans have got brains: if you talk to a German he understands what you say, which is such an advantage.”
“Whereas if you talk to an Englishman, he plays noughts and crosses,” said Robin. “Lord, they’re coming out of chapel. I must go and find Lady Gurtner.”
It was not very hard to find Lady Gurtner, for she was quite the most conspicuous object in the crowd that poured out of chapel. She was also in the highest spirits, for in the motor that waited for her at the gate, guarded by a footman, lay the sables that her soul had so ardently desired, which her husband had just purchased for her. This implied some big financial coup, the nature of which she knew. For his foresight on that night when he had sat up till dawn “writing and thinking for her,” had, in conjunction with more work next day, produced results that were excessively pleasant.
Before there had been anything like alarm on the Stock Exchange of Europe he had sold at peace prices enormous blocks of shares in English, German and French funds, with a view to repurchasing them at panic prices when the shadow of war spread. Simultaneously he had purchased interests in such holdings as coal and shipping companies, and in armament and ammunition works, such as Krupps and Vickers, which, instead of being adversely affected by the prospect of war, would be bound to appreciate. This sagacity also was turning out very well, and though he had intended to come with Aline into Cambridge that afternoon, from his country house a dozen miles off, he had judged it more prudent to get back to London that night, so as to be on the spot for the very agitated opening which the Stock Exchange would no doubt experience on Monday morning, and be ready for the psychological moment at which to put in his sickle and reap the golden harvest which awaited him on some of those transactions. But in his absence Aline felt that the sables made the only adequate substitute for him.
She had come to a decision on that question of national sympathy, which he had put so crudely before her at that tragic interview which succeeded her triumphant party. It was quite possible to be good friends with everybody, so she had determined. No doubt her German blood called to her, but her position, now strongly held in England, called to her also. The English, should that terrible event of England’s entering the war be realized (as her husband now deemed to be inevitable) should see how completely she had embraced the cause of her adopted country. She would be clever about it, too: she would frankly say how her heart was torn, but she would no less show that it had been torn into two very unequal portions, by far the largest of which was English. She developed those tactfulnesses at once, as she walked back to Robin’s rooms, talking rather loud.
“I never saw such a beautiful place,” she said, “and what singing! My dear, fancy living in this divine court! Are your rooms really here? Do you live here? What an atmosphere to be soaked in! No wonder you English boys are the most delightful creatures under the sun. You utterly lucky person, Robin. You go to school at Eton, and then you come here, and when you are away on your holidays you live at Grote. Thank goodness, my sons are going to do just the same. What wouldn’t I give to be a boy at Eton with this to follow! And are we really going to walk under this arch to your rooms? I am sick with envy of you. I shall die of discontent when I get back to my horrid house.”
They passed through the arch and into Robin’s room, which looked out away from the big court on to a small space of grass with a mulberry tree in the middle. Robin introduced Jelf, who in this interval had been useful with regard to making the kettle boil over a spirit-lamp, and Lady Gurtner became equally effusive to him.
“And so you’re another of the spoiled children of the world,” she said. “And that’s a mulberry tree out there, isn’t it? How old-world and lovely! I can see the fruit on it. But that’s the sort of thing you can’t get, unless you’ve five hundred years behind you. Do you read your Greek under the mulberry tree? I’m sure you do. There’s nothing like Cambridge in the whole of Germany. Poor Germany! Have you ever been to Germany, Mr. Jelf?”