There was something dramatic, in the most lurid sense of the word,
about the brief telephone message which Dominey received, not so many
hours later, from Carlton House Terrace. In a few minutes he was moving
through the streets, still familiar yet already curiously changed. Men
and women were going about their business as usual, but an air of
stupefaction was everywhere apparent. Practically every loiterer was
studying a newspaper, every chance acquaintance had stopped to confer
with his fellows. War, alternately the joke and bogey of the
conversationalist, stretched her grey hands over the sunlit city. Even
the lightest-hearted felt a thrill of apprehension at the thought of
the horrors that were to come. In a day or two all this was to be
changed. People went about then counting the Russian millions; the
steamroller fetish was to be evolved. The most peaceful stockbroker or
shopkeeper, who had never even been to a review in his life, could make
calculations of man power with a stump of pencil on the back of an old
envelope, which would convince the greatest pessimist that Germany and
Austria were outnumbered by at least three to one. But on this
particular morning, people were too stunned for calculations. The
incredible had happened. The long-discussed war--the nightmare of the
nervous, the derision of the optimist--had actually materialised. The
happy-go-lucky years of peace and plenty had suddenly come to an end.
Black tragedy leaned over the land.
Dominey, avoiding acquaintances as far as possible, his own mind in a
curious turmoil, passed down St. James's Street and along Pall Mall and
presented himself at Carlton House Terrace. Externally, the great white
building, with its rows of flower boxes, showed no signs of undue
perturbation. Inside, however, the anteroom was crowded with callers,
and it was only by the intervention of Terniloff's private secretary,
who was awaiting him, that Dominey was able to reach the inner sanctum
where the Ambassador was busy dictating letters. He broke off
immediately his visitor was announced and dismissed every one,
including his secretaries. Then he locked the door.
“Von Ragastein,” he groaned, “I am a broken man!”
Dominey grasped his hand sympathetically. Terniloff seemed to have aged
years even in the last few hours.
“I sent for you,” he continued, “to say farewell, to say farewell and
make a confession. You were right, and I was wrong. It would have been
better if I had remained and played the country farmer on my estates. I
was never shrewd enough to see until now that I have been made the
cat's-paw of the very men whose policy I always condemned.”
His visitor still remained silent. There was so little that he could
say.
“I have worked for peace,” Terniloff went on, “believing that my
country wanted peace. I have worked for peace with honourable men who
were just as anxious as I was to secure it. But all the time those for
whom I laboured were making faces behind my back. I was nothing more
nor less than their tool. I know now that nothing in this world could
have hindered what is coming.”
“Every one will at least realise,” Dominey reminded him, “that you did
your best for peace.”
“That is one reason why I sent for you,” was the agitated reply. “Not
long ago I spoke of a little volume, a diary which I have been keeping
of my work in this country. I promised to show it to you. You have asked
me for it several times lately. I am going to show it to you now. It is
written up to yesterday. It will tell you of all my efforts and how they
were foiled. It is an absolutely faithful narrative of my work here, and
the English response to it.”
The Prince crossed the room, unlocked one of the smaller safes, which
stood against the side of the wall, withdrew a morocco-bound volume the
size of a small portfolio, and returned to Dominey.
“I beg you,” he said earnestly, “to read this with the utmost care and
to await my instructions with regard to it. You can judge, no doubt,”
he went on a little bitterly, “why I give it into your keeping. Even
the Embassy here is not free from our own spies, and the existence of
these memoirs is known. The moment I reach Germany, their fate is
assured. I am a German and a patriot, although my heart is bitter
against those who are bringing this blot upon our country. For that
reason, these memoirs must be kept in a safe place until I see a good
use for them.”
“You mean if the governing party in German should change?”
“Precisely! They would then form at once my justification, and place
English diplomacy in such a light before the saner portion of my fellow
countrymen that an honourable peace might be rendered possible. Study
them carefully, Von Ragastein. Perhaps even your own allegiance to the
Party you serve may waver for a moment as you read.”
“I serve no Party,” Dominey said quietly, “only my Country.”
Terniloff sighed.
“Alas! there is no time for us to enter into one of our old arguments on
the ethics of government. I must send you away, Von Ragastein. You have
a terrible task before you. I am bound to wish you Godspeed. For myself
I shall not raise my head again until I have left England.”
“There is no other commission?” Dominey asked. “No other way in which I
can serve you?”
“None,” Terniloff answered sadly. “I am permitted to suffer no
inconveniences. My departure is arranged for as though I were royalty.
Yet believe me, my friend, every act of courtesy and generosity which I
receive in these moments, bites into my heart. Farewell!”
Dominey found a taxicab in Pall Mall and drove back to Berkeley Square.
He found Rosamund with a little troop of dogs, just entering the
gardens, and crossed to her side.
“Dear,” he asked, taking her arm, “would you mind very much coming down
to Norfolk for a few days?”
“With you?” she asked quickly.
“Yes! I want to be in retreat for a short time. There are one or two
things I must settle before I take up some fresh work.”
“I should love it,” she declared enthusiastically. “London is getting so
hot, and every one is so excited.”
“I shall order the touring car at three o'clock,” Dominey told her. “We
shall get home about nine. Parkins and your maid can go down by train.
Does that suit you?”
“Delightfully!”
He took her arm and they paced slowly along the hot walk.
“Rosamund dear,” he said, “the time has come which many people have been
dreading. We are at war.”
“I know,” she murmured.
“You and I have had quite a happy time together, these last few months,”
he went on, “even though there is still that black cloud between us. I
have tried to treat you as kindly and tenderly as though I were really
your husband and you were indeed my wife.”
“You're not going away?” she cried, startled. “I couldn't bear that! No
one could ever be so sweet as you have been to me.”
“Dear,” he said, “I want you to think--of your husband--of Everard. He
was a soldier once for a short time, was he not? What do you think he
would have done now that this terrible war has come?”
“He would have done what you will do,” she answered, with the slightest
possible tremor in her tone. “He would have become a soldier again, he
would have fought for his country.”
“And so must I--fight for my country,” he declared. “That is why I must
leave you for an hour now while I make some calls. I shall be back
to luncheon. Directly afterwards we must start. I have many things to
arrange first, though. Life is not going to be very easy for the next
few days.”
She held on to his arm. She seemed curiously reluctant to let him go.
“Everard,” she said, “when we are at Dominey shall I be able to see
Doctor Harrison?”
“Of course,” he assured her.
“There is something I want to say to him,” she confided, “something I
want to ask you, too. Are you the same person, Everard, when you are in
town as when you are in the country?”
He was a little taken aback at her question--asked, too, with such
almost plaintive seriousness. The very aberration it suggested seemed
altogether denied by her appearance. She was wearing a dress of black
and white muslin, a large black hat, Paris shoes. Her stockings, her
gloves, all the trifling details of her toilette, were carefully chosen,
and her clothes themselves gracefully and naturally worn. Socially, too,
she had been amazingly successful. Only the week before, Caroline had
come to him with a little shrug of the shoulders.
“I have been trying to be kind to Rosamund,” she said, “and finding
out instead how unnecessary it is. She is quite the most popular of the
younger married women in our set. You don't deserve such luck, Everard.”
“You know the proverb about the old roue,” he had replied.
His mind had wandered for a moment. He realised Rosamund's question with
a little start.
“The same person, dear?” he repeated. “I think so. Don't I seem so to
you?”
She shook her head.
“I am not sure,” she answered, a little mysteriously. “You see, in the
country I still remember sometimes that awful night when I so nearly
lost my reason. I have never seen you as you looked that night.”
“You would rather not go back, perhaps?”
“That is the strange part of it,” she replied. “There is nothing in the
world I want so much to do. There's an empty taxi, dear,” she added,
as they reached the gate. “I shall go in and tell Justine about the
packing.”