"I expect he is right. Letters
have been stopped."
"And what do you think will be the result of Belgium's appeal?" she
asked.
"Who can tell? The Prime Minister is going to make a statement on
Monday. There have been Cabinet meetings going on all day."
She looked at him in silence.
"And what do you think?" she asked.
Quite suddenly, at her question, Michael found himself facing it, even
as, when the final catastrophe was more remote, he had faced it with
Falbe. All this week he knew he had been looking away from it, telling
himself that it was incredible. Now he discovered that the one thing
he dreaded more than that England should go to war, was that she
should not. The consciousness of national honour, the thing which, with
religion, Englishmen are most shy of speaking about, suddenly asserted
itself, and he found on the moment that it was bigger than anything else
in the world.
"I think we shall go to war," he said. "I don't see personally how we
can exist any more as a nation if we don't. We--we shall be damned if we
don't, damned for ever and ever. It's moral extinction not to."
She kindled at that.
"Yes, I know," she said, "that's what I have been telling myself; but,
oh, Mike, there's some dreadful cowardly part of me that won't listen
when I think of Hermann, and .
Pages:
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368