"He was very angry, but, since the affair has really begun, he is with us, of course."
"Where is he?"
"He went to the house to find you an hour ago."
Guild bit his lip in silence. The stupidity of what had been done, the utter hopelessness of the situation sickened him.
The slow, groping peasant mind, occupied always with the moment's problem only, solving it by impulse and instinct alone—what could be done with such a mind—what could be hoped from it except under patiently inculcated military discipline.
Loosened from that, and defending its property from actual or threatened aggression, it became a furtive, fierce and quickened mind, alternately cunning and patiently ferocious. But of reason, or of logic, it reckons nothing, knows nothing.
Trouble had begun—trouble was abroad already in the star-light—moving, menacing.
"What is your word?" he asked bluntly.
"Yslemont."
He turned to Karen, who stood quietly beside him: "The ladies must leave this house tonight. There is no time at all to waste. There is going to be real trouble here by morning. And I am going to ask you if you will give these American ladies shelter tonight at Quellenheim. Will you, Karen?"