ance. All that concerns me is that I
shall rejoin again if they call up the Reserves."

"And they will?"

"Yes, I should think that is inevitable. And you know there's something
big about it. I'm not warlike, you know, but I could not fail to be a
soldier under these new conditions, any more than I could continue being
a soldier when all it meant was to be ornamental. Hermann in bursts of
pride and patriotism used to call us toy-soldiers. But he's wrong now;
we're not going to be toy-soldiers any more."

She did not answer him, but he felt her hand press close in the palm of
his.

"I can't tell you how I dreaded we shouldn't go to war," he said. "That
has been a nightmare, if you like. It would have been the end of us if
we had stood aside and seen Germany violate a solemn treaty."

Even with Michael close to her, the call of her blood made itself
audible to Sylvia. Instinctively she withdrew her hand from his.

"Ah, you don't understand Germany at all," she said. "Hermann always
felt that too. He told me he felt he was talking gibberish to you when
he spoke of it. It is clearly life and death to Germany to move against
France as quickly as possible."

"But there's a direct frontier between the two," said he.

"No doubt, but an impossible one."

Michael frowned, drawing his big eyebrows together.

"But nothing can justify the violation of a national oath," he said.
"That's the basis of civilisation, a thing like that."

"But if it's a necessity? If a nation's existence depends on it?" she
asked. "Oh, Michael, I don't know! I don't know! For a little I am
entirely English, and then something calls to me from beyond the Rhine!
There's the hopelessness of it for me and such as me. You are English;
there's no question about it for you. But for us! I love England: I
needn't tell you that. But can one ever forget the land of one's birth?
Can I help feeling the necessity Germany is under? I can't believe that
she has wantonly provoked war with you."

"But consider--" said he.

She got up suddenly.

"I can't argue about it," she said. "I am English and I am German. You
must make the best of me as I am. But do be sorry for me, and never,
never forget that I love you entirely. That's the root fact between us.
I can't go deeper than that, because that reaches to the very bottom of
my soul. Shall we leave it so, Michael, and not ever talk of it again?
Wouldn't that be best?"

There was no question of choice for M