I said:
‘You are talking like the Navy League, George.’
‘I know,’ said George. ‘I suddenly thought, Supposing the damned fools were right.’
Walter said:
‘It is quite inconceivable, I think, that Great Britain should be involved in a European War.’
He spoke with a note of exasperation in his voice, as though every one were being silly. I thought they could not all be silly, for they were saying different things.
‘It is inconceivable we could keep out,’ said Guy, ‘if France and Germany were at War.’
‘Come, come,’ said Grandmother, ‘don’t try to make my flesh creep, young people. I think we can trust the Austrians to settle up their own affair; it was all in their own country after all.’
She turned to Walter, who was on her other side, and asked him how his book was getting on; and after that we talked about plays, the Vedrenne Barker Season at the Savoy and Rheinhardt’s production of Œdipus. I had seen none of them, nor Walter of course, for we seldom went to plays, but all the others had, and I liked to hear about them.
After dinner we had coffee in the drawing-room; then Grandmother went to her memoirs, in her sitting-room upstairs, and we played Demon Pounce with two card tables joined together and five packs of cards. We called it Prawn Eye, and we often used to play it.