I
ON the date that the Archduke was assassinated, we were dining at Campden Hill Square. Guy and Hugo were there, and George and Mollie, and Ralph Freeman, who was back from Vienna now, in the Foreign Office again.
It was a party like old times, and I liked it. I was so happy to be about again and to have my baby; for Eleanor was incredibly precious to me at that time.
I was glad to see them all again, and I felt somehow that I had come back to life; that I wanted to do so much that I had not been able to do during the last months.
There was a new pleasure in moving, and in eating, and in being alive.
‘They will all be there,’ I said to Walter, as we were getting ready to go. ‘We have not been all together like that since we were married, for Hugo went away so soon.’
Walter smiled, but I knew he was not pleased. He was tying his black tie, and he always tied his ties badly. He disliked dressing for dinner, and never did so, if he could avoid it.
‘You must like them,’ I said. ‘Please try to like them. You see I do so much.’
And he looked suddenly sorry, and stopped pulling at his tie.
‘Yes, you do. I know that, and I ought not to mind,’ he said, ‘but I can’t help it. They make me feel a fool, those friends of yours, and I am not a fool, and I am always afraid that you will think of me as they do, when they are there. I suppose I am jealous of them.’