Gossamer Part 25

Another party fluttered past us, a man and a woman.

"There," said Ascher, "is a French woman. She is Madame de Berthier, the wife of one of the Ministers in the last Government, a very prominent woman in Paris. I know her pretty well, but even if I did not know her I should recognise her as French. You see that she is conscious all the time that she is a woman and therefore that men's eyes are on her. She does not escape from that consciousness. If a German lady were to pa.s.s us we should see that she also is s.e.x conscious; but she would be aware that she is _only_ a woman, the inferior of the men with her. The Englishwoman does not admit, does not feel, that she has any superiors and she can walk as if she did not care whether people looked at her and admired her or not. Even the American woman cannot or does not do that.

She wants to please and is always trying to please. The Englishwoman is not indifferent to admiration and she tries to please if she thinks it worth while. But she has learnt to bear herself as if she does not care; as if the world and all that is in it were hers of right."

Two men--one of them almost forty years of age, the other much younger--walked slowly up the hall looking to right and left of them.

They failed to find the friends whom they sought. The elder spoke a few words and they sat down opposite to us, probably to wait until the rest of their party should arrive. "The men of your English upper cla.s.ses,"

said Ascher, "are physically very splendid, the sons of the women we have been looking at are sure to be that. They possess a curious code of honour, very limited, very irrational, but certainly very fine as far as it goes. And I think they are probably true to it."

"I should have said," I replied, "that the idea of honour had almost disappeared, what used to be called the honour of a gentleman."

"You do not really think that," said Ascher. "Or perhaps you may. In a certain sense honour has disappeared among your upper cla.s.ses. It is no longer displayed. To the outsider it is scarcely noticeable. It is covered up by affectation of cynicism, of greed, of selfishness. To pose as cynical and selfish is for the moment fashionable. But the sense of honour--of that singular arbitrary English honour--is behind the pose, is the reality. Look at those two men opposite us. They are probably--but perhaps I offend you in talking this way. You yourself belong to the same cla.s.s as those men."

"You do not offend me in the least," I said. "I'm not an Englishman for one thing. Gorman won't let me call myself Irish, but I stick to it that I'm not English. Please go on with what you were saying."

"Those men," said Ascher slowly, "are probably self indulgent. Their morality--s.e.x morality--is most likely very low. We may suppose that they have many prejudices and very few ideas. They--I do not know those two personally. I take them simply as types of their cla.s.s. They are wholly indifferent to, even a little contemptuous of art and literature.

But if it happened that a duty claimed them, a duty which they recognised, they would not fail to obey the call. I can believe for instance that they would fight, would suffer the incredible hardships of a soldier's life, would endure pain and would die, without any heroics or fuss or shouting. Men of my cla.s.s and my training could not do those things without great effort. Those men would do them simply, naturally."

"Ascher," I said, "I have a confession to make to you. I understand German. I happen to know the language, learned it as a boy." Ascher looked at me curiously for a moment. I do not think that he was much surprised at what I said or that my confession made him uneasy.

"Ah! You are thinking of what my nephew said to me as we left the supper room. You heard?"

"Yes," I said, "I felt like an eavesdropper, but I couldn't help myself.

He spoke quite loudly."

"And you understood?"

As a matter of fact I had not understood at the moment. Von Richter said very little, and what little he said concerned Ascher's business and had nothing to do with me. He told Ascher to move very cautiously, to risk as little as possible, to keep the money of his firm within reach for a few months. That, as well as I can remember, was all he said; but he repeated it. "Your money should be realisable at a moment's notice."

"You understood?" said Ascher, patiently persistent.

"I don't understand yet," I said, "but what you have just said about Englishmen being capable of fighting has put thoughts into my mind. Did Captain von Richter mean----?"

"He meant to warn me," said Ascher, "that what I have always looked forward to with horror and dread is imminent--a great war. You remember a talk we had long ago in New York; the night we were at the circus and saw the trapeze swingers. Well, if my nephew is right, the whole delicate balance of that performance is going to be upset. There will be a crash, inevitably."

"And you?"

Ascher smiled faintly.

"For me as well as for the others," he said. "The fact that my affairs are greater than those of most men will only make my fall the worse."

"But you have been warned in time."

"I scarcely needed the warning. I was aware of the danger. My nephew only told me what I knew. His warning, coming from him, an officer who stands high in the German military service--it confirms my fears, no more."

"But you can save yourself and your business," I said. "Knowing what is before you, you can--you need not lend money, accept obligations. You can gradually draw out of the stream of credit in which your fortune is involved, get into a backwater for a while. You have time enough. I am expressing myself all wrong; but you know what I mean."

"I know. And you think I ought to do that?"

"There is no 'ought' about it," I said. "It is the natural thing to do."

"You were a soldier once. I think you told me so."

I nodded.

"Suppose," said Ascher, "that this warning had come to you then, while you were still a soldier. Suppose that you had known what your brother officers did not know, or the men under you, that war was coming, you would have resigned your commission. Is it so?"

"No," I said, "I shouldn't."

"It would have been, from my point of view--for I am a coward--it would have been the natural thing to do."

"It wouldn't have been natural to me," I said. "I couldn't have done it.

I don't know why, but I couldn't. I'm not professing to be particularly brave or chivalrous or anything of that sort. But to resign under those circ.u.mstances----! Well, one doesn't do it."

"Nor do I know why," said Ascher, "but I cannot do it either. It is, you see, the same thing. I must, of course, go on; just as you would have felt yourself obliged to go on. The warning makes no difference."

The idea that a banker feels about his business as a soldier does about his profession was new to me. But I understood more or less what Ascher meant. If he had that kind of sense of obligation there was clearly no more to be said about the point.

"And England?" I said. "Is she to be in it?"

"Who knows? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I hope not. The disaster will be far less terrible if England is able to remain at peace."

"Tell me this," I said, "or if I am impertinent, say so, and I shall not ask again. What was Captain von Richter doing in Ireland?"

"I do not know. I can only guess."

"Not buying horses?"

"I do not suppose he went there to buy horses though he may have bought some. He went to see, to learn, to understand. That is what I guess. I do not know."

"He has probably made up his mind," I said, "that in the course of the next couple of months England will find herself with her hands full, so full with Irish affairs that it will be impossible for her to act elsewhere. A civil war in Ireland----"

"My nephew," said Ascher, "is not very clever. He may think that. He is, I believe, an excellent soldier. But if he were a banker I should not employ him to find out things for me. I should not rely on the reports he brought me. He lacks intelligence. Very likely he believes what you have said."

"But you don't?"

"No. I do not. I do not believe that Irish affairs will be in such a state that they will determine England's action. You see I have the privilege of knowing Gorman."

"You don't know Malcolmson," I said, "and he's a most important factor in the problem. He's like your nephew, an excellent soldier, but lacking in intelligence. You don't realise what Malcolmson is capable of."

"I do not know Colonel Malcolmson personally," said Ascher. "I am right, am I not, in styling him _Colonel_ Malcolmson?"

"Yes. He retired some years ago as Colonel of my old regiment"

"Does a man retire from his loyalty," said Ascher, "when he retires from his regiment? Will your friend give up his honour because he has given up his command? Will he aid the enemies of England?"

"Of course," I said, "if you put it to Malcolmson in that way---- He's a positive fanatic on the subject of loyalty. But he doesn't know, he doesn't understand. He hasn't had the warning that your nephew has just given you."

"You are an Irishman," said Ascher, "and you ought to know your countrymen better than I do. But it will surprise me very much if England finds herself hampered by Ireland when the crisis comes."