"Ah, you think that?" asked Michael.
Hermann put his hand on Michael's shoulder.
"Mike, you're the best friend I have," he said, "and soon, please God,
you are going to marry the girl who is everything else in the world to
me. You two make up my world really--you two and my mother, anyhow.
No other individual counts, or is in the same class. You know that,
I expect. But there is one other thing, and that's my nationality. It
counts first. Nothing, nobody, not even Sylvia or my mother or you can
stand between me and that. I expect you know that also, for you saw,
nearly a year ago, what Germany is to me. Perhaps I may be quite wrong
about it all--about the gravity, I mean, of the situation, and perhaps
in a few days I may come racing home again. Yes, I said 'home,' didn't
I? Well, that shows you just how I am torn in two. But I can't help
going."
Hermann's hand remained on his shoulder gently patting it. To Michael
the world, life, the whole spirit of things had suddenly grown sinister,
of the quality of nightmare. It was true that all the ground of this
ominous depression which had darkened round him, was conjectural and
speculative, that diplomacy, backed by the horror of war which surely
all civilised nations and responsible govermnents must share, had, so
far from saying its last, not yet said its first word; that the wits of
all the Cabinets of Europe were at this moment only just beginning to
stir themselves so as to secure a peaceful solution; but, in spite
of this, the darkness and the nightmare grew in intensity.
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