The Fürstin fell behind with her unwilling escort, a newly arrived medical student from England, a very pleasant youngster named Berwick, who was all too obviously anxious to change places with me. She devised delays, and meanwhile I, as yet unaware of the state of affairs, went on with Rachel to that towering florid monument with its vast gesticulating Germania, which triumphs over the conquered provinces.
We fell talking of war and the passions and delusions that lead to war. Rachel's thoughts were strongly colored by those ideas of a natural rivalry between Germany and England and of a necessary revenge for France which have for nearly forty years diverted the bulk of European thought and energy to the mere waste of military preparations. I jarred with an edifice of preconceptions when I scoffed and scolded at these assumptions.
"Our two great peoples are disputing for the leadership of the world," I said, "and meanwhile the whole world sweeps past us. We're drifting into a quarrelsome backwater."
I began to tell of the fermentation and new beginnings that were everywhere perceptible throughout the East, of the vast masses of human ability and energy that were coming into action in China and India, of the unlimited future of both North and South America, of the mere accidentalness of the European advantage. "History," I said, "is already shifting the significance out of Western Europe altogether, and we English cannot see it; we can see no further than Berlin, and these Germans can think of nothing better than to taunt the French with such tawdry effigies as this! Europe goes on to-day as India went on in the eighteenth century, making aimless history. And the sands of opportunity run and run...."
I shrugged my shoulders and we stood for a little while looking down on the shining crescent of the Rhine.
"Suppose," said Rachel, "that someone were to say that—in the House."
"The House," I said, "doesn't hear things at my pitch. Bat outcries. Too shrill altogether."
"It might. If you——"
She halted, hesitated for a moment on the question and asked abruptly:
"When are you coming back to England, Mr. Stratton?"
"Certainly not for six months," I said.
A movement of her eyes made me aware of the Fürstin and Berwick emerging from the trees. "And then?" asked Rachel.
I didn't want to answer that question, in which the personal note sounded so clearly. "I am going to America to see America," I said, "and America may be rather a big thing to see."
"You must see it?"
"I want to be sure of it—as something comprehensive. I want to get a general effect of it...."
Rachel hesitated, looked back to measure the distance of the Fürstin and her companion and put her question again, but this time with a significance that did not seem even to want to hide itself. "Then will you come back?" she said.
Her face flamed scarlet, but her eyes met mine boldly. Between us there was a flash of complete understanding.
My answer, if it was lame and ungallant to such a challenge, was at least perfectly honest. "I can't make up my mind," I said. "I've been near making plans—taking steps.... Something holds me back...."
I had no time for an explanation.
"I can't make up my mind," I repeated.
She stood for a moment rather stiffly, staring away towards the blue hills of Alsace.
Then she turned with a smiling and undisturbed countenance to the Fürstin. Her crimson had given place to white. "The triumph of it," she said with a slight gesture to the flamboyant Teutonism that towered over us, and boldly repeating words I had used scarcely five minutes before, "makes me angry. They conquered—ungraciously...."
She had overlooked something in her effort to seem entirely self-possessed. She collapsed. "My dear!" she cried,—"I forgot!"
"Oh! I'm only a German by marriage!" cried the Fürstin. "And I can assure you I quite understand—about the triumph of it...." She surveyed the achievement of her countrymen. "It is—ungracious. But indeed it's only a sort of artlessness if you see the thing properly.... It's not vulgarity—it's childishness.... They've hardly got over it yet—their intense astonishment at being any good at war.... That large throaty Victory! She's not so militant as she seems. She's too plump.... Of course what a German really appreciates is nutrition. But I quite agree with you both.... I'm beginning to want my tea, Mr. Stratton.... Rachel!"
Her eyes had been on Rachel as she chattered. The girl had turned to the distant hills again, and had forgotten even to pretend to listen to the answer she had evoked. Now she came back sharply to the sound of her name.
"Tea?" said the Fürstin.
"Oh!" cried Rachel. "Yes. Yes, certainly. Rather. Tea."
§ 3
It was clear to me that after that I must as people say "have things out" with Rachel. But before I could do anything of the sort the Fürstin pounced upon me. She made me sit up that night after her other guests had gone to their rooms, in the cosy little turret apartment she called her study and devoted to the reading of whatever was most notorious in contemporary British fiction. "Sit down," said she, "by the fire in that chair there and tell me all about it. It's no good your pretending you don't know what I mean. What are you up to with her, and why don't you go straight to your manifest destiny as a decent man should?"
"Because manifestly it isn't my destiny," I said.
"Stuff," said the Fürstin.
"You know perfectly well why I am out of England."
"Everybody knows—except of course quite young persons who are being carefully brought up."
"Does she know?"
"She doesn't seem to."
"Well, that's what I want to know."
"Need she know?"
"Well, it does seem rather essential——"
"I suppose if you think so——"
"Will you tell her?"
"Tell her yourself, if she must be told. Down there in Surrey, she must have seen things and heard things. But I don't see that she wants a lot of ancient history."
"If it is ancient history!"
"Oh! two years and a half,—it's an Era."
I made no answer to that, but sat staring into the fire while my cousin watched my face. At length I made my confession. "I don't think it is ancient history at all," I said. "I think if I met Mary again now——"
"You mean Lady Mary Justin?"
"Of course."
"It would be good for your mind if you remembered to call her by her proper name.... You think if you met her again you two would begin to carry on. But you see,—you aren't going to meet her. Everybody will see that doesn't happen."
"I mean that I—— Well——"
"You'd better not say it. Besides, it's nonsense. I doubt if you've given her a thought for weeks and weeks."
"Until I came here perhaps that was almost nearly true. But you've stirred me up, sweet cousin, and old things, old memories and habits have come to the surface again. Mary wrote herself over my life—in all sorts of places.... I can't tell you. I've never talked of her to anyone. I'm not able, very well, to talk about my feelings.... Perhaps a man of my sort—doesn't love twice over."
I disregarded a note of dissent from my cousin. "That was all so magic, all my youth, all my hope, all the splendid adventure of it. Why should one pretend?... I'm giving none of that to Rachel. It isn't there any more to give...."