“You do not really think that,” said Ascher. “Or perhaps you may. In a certain sense honour has disappeared among your upper classes. It is no longer displayed. To the outsider it is scarcely noticeable. It is covered up by affectation of cynicism, of greed, of selfishness. To pose as cynical and selfish is for the moment fashionable. But the sense of honour—of that singular arbitrary English honour—is behind the pose, is the reality. Look at those two men opposite us. They are probably—but perhaps I offend you in talking this way. You yourself belong to the same class as those men.”
“You do not offend me in the least,” I said. “I’m not an Englishman for one thing. Gorman won’t let me call myself Irish, but I stick to it that I’m not English. Please go on with what you were saying.”
“Those men,” said Ascher slowly, “are probably self indulgent. Their morality—sex morality—is most likely very low. We may suppose that they have many prejudices and very few ideas. They—I do not know those two personally. I take them simply as types of their class. They are wholly indifferent to, even a little contemptuous of art and literature. But if it happened that a duty claimed them, a duty which they recognised, they would not fail to obey the call. I can believe for instance that they would fight, would suffer the incredible hardships of a soldier’s life, would endure pain and would die, without any heroics or fuss or shouting. Men of my class and my training could not do those things without great effort. Those men would do them simply, naturally.”
“Ascher,” I said, “I have a confession to make to you. I understand German. I happen to know the language, learned it as a boy.” Ascher looked at me curiously for a moment. I do not think that he was much surprised at what I said or that my confession made him uneasy.
“Ah! You are thinking of what my nephew said to me as we left the supper room. You heard?”
“Yes,” I said, “I felt like an eavesdropper, but I couldn’t help myself. He spoke quite loudly.”
“And you understood?”
As a matter of fact I had not understood at the moment. Von Richter said very little, and what little he said concerned Ascher’s business and had nothing to do with me. He told Ascher to move very cautiously, to risk as little as possible, to keep the money of his firm within reach for a few months. That, as well as I can remember, was all he said; but he repeated it. “Your money should be realisable at a moment’s notice.”
“You understood?” said Ascher, patiently persistent.
“I don’t understand yet,” I said, “but what you have just said about Englishmen being capable of fighting has put thoughts into my mind. Did Captain von Richter mean——?”