When Sir William went off with his three sons for a stroll, Lady McIntyre accompanied them as far as the gate.
She brought back into the hall a face more agitated than Napier had ever seen it. Irresolute, miserable, she paused on her way to the sofa where Napier sat, trying to read. "Colin," she jerked out in a guarded voice, "has the strangest notions!" The pale eyes looked round more helpless than ever. "He says Greta tried to pump him about army matters, and he's sorry he didn't warn Neil! He's going to. Colin said,—oh, in the unkindest way! 'That woman ought to go home!' 'Home?' I said, 'why, this is Greta's home!' 'No, it isn't,' he said; 'Germany's her home, and she ought to go there!' Oh, Colin can be very hard when he likes!" She choked back her tears, as Miss Ellis came running down the stairs. "What is it?" Lady McIntyre started to her feet. "Is Greta worse?"
"Oh, no. It's only Ju—Mr. Grant has got back. We saw him coming across the—"
He stood in the doorway. Nan went forward, hand out, welcome in every lineament, a kind of all-enfolding affection in the forward inclination of the whole, lightly poised figure.
Napier looked on dully.
Though Julian was smiling as he took the girl's hand, she said, with quick intuition of his mood, "What's happened?" And after he'd come in and greeted the others, "Aren't they well, your father and mother?" she persisted gently. "They haven't come? I am sorry! I knew something was wrong." She folded her sympathy round him like a cloak.
"It isn't their not coming." He dropped into a chair. "It's the stuff I've had to listen to in town. And in the railway carriages too. The colossal tomfoolery—the—the indecent way people were jubilating over the greatest disaster in history. This is the kind of fierce test that people go down under. They'd be ashamed to be unfair, lying, and greedy for themselves. They think it's a merit to be unfair, lying, and greedy for England."
Lady McIntyre cast her eye up the staircase, whither her thoughts had already gone. She was in the act of getting up, when Julian broke out moodily, "And the way people already are beginning to talk and behave about the Germans in England!" He had his instances.
Napier pointed out that, regrettable as these manifestations were, they were fewer and of a much milder character with us than in other countries. He spoke of ill-treatment in Germany and Austria of retiring ambassadors and even of neutrals. He turned to Nan Ellis. "Your countrymen could tell you a tale of these last days that would make you open your eyes. Ask your ambassador."
"If the Germans really did," Julian began; but Napier picked him up smartly, "You forget, we know."