That question of mine made them stare as though I had uttered some blasphemy. Generally they did not attempt to answer it, but shrugged their shoulders with a look of unutterable disgust, or said, “Disgraceful!” They were men, invariably, who had done embusqué work in the war, in Government offices and soft jobs. Soldiers who had fought their way to Cologne were more lenient. One of them said, “Some of the German girls are devilish pretty. Not my style, perhaps, but kissable.”
I saw something of Brand’s trouble when I walked down Knightsbridge with him one day on the way to his home in Chelsea. Horace Chipchase, the novelist, came face to face with us and gave a whoop of pleasure when he saw us. Then suddenly, after shaking hands with me and greeting Brand warmly, he remembered the rumour that had reached him. Embarrassment overcame him, and ignoring Brand he confined his remarks to me, awkwardly, and made an excuse for getting on. He did not look at Brand again.
“Bit strained in his manner,” I remarked, glancing sideways at Wickham.
He strode on, with tightened lips.
“Shared rooms with me once, and I helped him when he was badly in need of it.... He’s heard about Elsa. Silly blighter!”
But it hurt the man, who was very sensitive under his hard crust.
It was on the way to his house that he told me he had made arrangements at last for Elsa to join him in England. One of his friends at headquarters in Cologne was providing her with a passport and had agreed to let her travel with him to Paris, where he was to give evidence before a committee of the Peace Conference. Brand could fetch her from there in a week’s time.
“I am going to Paris next week,” I told him, and he gave a grunt of pleasure, and said, “Splendid! We can both meet Elsa.”
I thought it curious then, and afterwards, that he was anxious for my company when he met his wife and when she was with him. I think the presence of a third person helped him to throw off a little of the melancholy into which he relapsed when alone.