"My mother, Sir, was of Germany."
"So we can wish that country all success."
"Can we do no more?" said Geoffrey. And at breakfast-time he returned
to the subject. The Favershams held property in Germany; influence
might be exerted; it was only right that those who held a substantial
stake in a country should venture something for its cause. The words
came quite easily from Geoffrey's lips; he had been schooling himself
to speak them ever since it had become apparent that Germany and
France were driving to the collision of war. General Faversham laughed
with content when he heard them.
"That's a Faversham talking," said he. "But there are obstacles, my
boy. There is the Foreign Enlistment Act, for instance. You are half
German, to be sure, but you are an English subject, and, by the Lord!
you are all Faversham. No, I cannot give you permission to seek
service in Germany. You understand. I cannot give you permission," he
repeated the words, so that the limit as well as the extent of their
meaning might be fully understood; and as he repeated them, he
solemnly winked. "Of course, you can go to Germany; you can follow
the army as closely as you are allowed. In fact, I will give you some
introductions with that end in view. You will gain experience, of
course; but seek service,--no! To do that, as I have said, I cannot
give you permission."
The General went off chuckling to write his letters; and with them
safely tucked away in his pocket, Geoffrey drove later in the day to
the station.
General Faversham did not encourage demonstrations. He shook his son
cordially by the hand--
"There's no way I would rather you spent your furlough. But come back,
Geoff," said he. He was not an observant man except in the matter of
military detail; and of Geoffrey's object he had never the slightest
suspicion. Had it been told him, however, he would only have
considered it one of those queer, inexplicable vagaries, like the
history of his coward in the Crimea.
Geoffrey's action, however, was of a piece with the rest of his life:
it was due to no sudden, desperate resolve. He went out to the war as
deliberately as he had ridden out to the hunting-field. The realities
of battle might prove his anticipations mere unnecessary torments of
the mind.
"If only I can serve,--as a volunteer, as a private, in any capacity,"
he thought, "I shall at all events know. And if I fail, I fail not in
the company of my fellows. I disgrace only myself, not my name. But if
I do not fail--" He drew a great breath, he saw himself waking up one
morning without oppression, without the haunting dread that he
was destined one day to slink in forgotten corners of the world a
forgotten pariah, destitute even of the courage to end his misery. He
went out to the war because he was afraid of fear.