_Later._
Well, it has come off. Mrs. Barnes is out of the hall, and at this very
moment Uncle Rudolph and Dolly are alone together in it, proposing and
being proposed to. He is telling her that he worships her, and in reply
she is gently drawing his attention to Siegfried and Juchs. How much
will he mind them? Will he mind them at all? Will his love triumphantly
consume them, or, having swallowed Siegfried, will he find himself
unable to manage Juchs?
Oh, I love people to be happy! I love them to love each other! I do hope
it will be all right! Dolly may say what she likes, but love is the only
thing in the world that works miracles. Look at Uncle Rudolph. I'm more
doubtful, though, of the result than I would have been yesterday,
because what brought about Mrs. Barnes's absence from the hall has made
me nervous as to how he will face the disclosing of Juchs.
While I'm waiting I may as well write it down,--by my clock I count up
that Dolly must be a third of the way through Siegfried now, so that
I've still got three quarters of an hour.
This is what happened:
The morning started badly, indeed terribly. Dolly, bored by being stared
at in silence, said something about more wool and went upstairs quite
soon after breakfast. My uncle, casting a despairing glance at the
window past which the snow was driving, scowled for a moment or two at
Mrs. Barnes, then picked up a stale _Times_ and hid himself behind it.
To make up for his really dreadful scowl at Mrs. Barnes I began a
pleasant conversation with her, but at once she checked me, saying,
'Sh--sh--,' and deferentially indicating, with her knitting needle, my
reading uncle.
Incensed by such slavishness, I was about to rebel and insist on talking
when he, stirred apparently by something of a bloodthirsty nature that
he saw in the _Times_, exclaimed in a very loud voice, 'Search as I
may--and I have searched most diligently--I can't find a single good
word to say for Germans.'
It fell like a bomb. He hasn't mentioned Germans once. I had come to
feel quite safe. The shock of it left me dumb. Mrs. Barnes's knitting
needles stopped as if struck. I didn't dare look at her. Dead silence.
My uncle lowered the paper and glanced round at us, expecting agreement,
impatient of our not instantly saying we thought as he did.
'Can _you_?' he asked me, as I said nothing, being petrified.