He was so deep in thought that he had not noted the soft sounds of her approach. The only light in the room was his study lamp, and his face was in shadow while his hands rested on the open Atlas in front of him and were brightly lit. They were rather sturdy white hands with broad thumbs, exactly like Peter’s. Presently he stirred and pulled the Atlas towards him, and turned the page over to another map. The fingers of his left hand drummed on the desk.
He looked up abruptly, and she came to the window and leant forward into the room, with her arms folded on the sill.
“You’re as still as the night, Joan,” he said.
“There’s thunder brewing.”
“There’s war brewing, Joan.”
“Why do you sit poring over that map?”
“Because there are various people called Croats and Slovenes and Serbs and they are beginning to think they are one people and ought to behave as one people, and some of them are independent and some are under the Austrians and some are under the Italians.”
“What has that got to do with us?” said Joan.
She followed her question up with another. “Is it a fresh Balkan war?”
“Something bigger than that,” said Oswald. “Something very much bigger—unless we are careful.”