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 §6
Violet Rawlings, sprightly as ever, even more fluffily dressed than
usual; and her husband Hubert, determined that ninety-six hours of
personal suggestion should at last secure him some part of the
Nirvana advertising account, arrived in time for lunch next day. The
foxy-faced publicity agent lost no time in opening his campaign.
“We went to the Palace last night,” he began, almost before they
had sat down to their meal. “On our way home I noticed that your
new sign in Piccadilly wasn’t burning properly.”
“Really,” said Peter stiffly.
“Lobster mayonnaise, or some of these cold eggs?” asked
Patricia, hoping to turn their conversation.
But her brother-in-law took no notice. “I’m somewhat of an
expert on signs,” he continued. “And, frankly, I don’t think they have
much selling value on a high-grade article like yours. I pin my faith
to full pages in the six-penny weeklies. And of course, Punch.
Although Punch is a humorous paper. . . .”
“I beg your pardon,” interrupted Francis.
“I said—although Punch is a humorous paper.”
Francis, feeling satire useless with a creature of this type, gave
up the struggle. Hubert accepted an egg, as less liable than lobster
to impede talk; and continued his harangue.
Peter, who knew that Rawlings, despite his personal
unpleasantness, possessed knowledge, listened interestedly—asking
a question every now and then. The others started a conversation
on their own.
Said Violet, monopolizing it, “Oh but we never leave London
while the ‘House’ is sitting. I think politics so interesting, Mr. Gordon.
Don’t you? Though I suppose as an author—so clever, that last poem
of yours—you take more interest in the affairs of the heart.”
She ruffled herself; rattled on.
“But of course, politics are the thing nowadays. I’m afraid”—her
voice dropped to the confidential whisper of the person who has no
news to impart—“we’re going to have trouble. Not with Servia, of
course: but in Ireland. People are saying. . . .”
“Amazing,” thought Francis, “how a nice woman like Pat. can
have such a sister.”
Smith, bringing the joint, interrupted the Rawlings duo in their
monologues.
“I always wonder,” went on Hubert a few minutes later, “why you
didn’t take your brother into partnership. He seemed an awfully nice
fellow, the only time I met him.”
“Arthur?” queried Peter. “Why, Arthur wouldn’t take a partnership
in Rothschilds! He ran away from school when he was fifteen; and
he’s been running from somewhere or other ever since. The last
time I heard from him, he was in the Dutch Indies—planting. Wrote
to ask my opinion about tobacco prospects in Java. Beastly stuff,
Javanese tobacco; though they use a lot of it for making so-called
Borneo cigars.”
Luncheon over, Peter and Patricia challenged the two men at
tennis: Violet, languid in a long chair, alternately watched the match;
and picked her way expertly through The Tatler. To see her own
photograph in that periodical, not once but regularly, was a small
part of Violet’s many unrealized ambitions: which included a
knighthood and a seat in the House of Commons for her husband, a
Rolls-Royce limousine (painted black and white for preference) for
herself, and all the usual appurtenances of the politico-parisitical set
which both of them alternatively aped and envied. Neither she nor
her husband belonged to the class who “didn’t want anything in
particular”!
Peter, playing brilliantly at the net, and Patricia, backing him up
accurately from the base-line, defeated their opponents in three
straight setts. Followed tea, a languid paddle towards Shiplake, the
dressing-gong, stiff shirts and low frocks, auction bridge. . . .
July the Thirty-first, Nineteen Hundred and Fourteen! And yet,
not one of those fairly well-informed five dreamed the False Peace
actually at an end. Already, the Beasts in Gray,—murder, rape and
plunder in their swinish eyes,—were abroad. Already the Crime, so
long premeditated, had been committed. Even as these four sat at
their game, less than fifty miles away from them, up in London, the
womanizers and the wine-bibbers of Westminster were scuttling
hither and thither, incredulous, anxious to compromise, fearful. The
scum which had floated to the surface! They trembled now, those
false guardians. For they and they alone in all England feared the
Beast. But more than the Beast, they feared their own People;—
knowing them not, neither their strength, nor their courage, nor
their infinite forgiveness.
But already (one man’s work!), silent, forethoughted, utterly
equipped, the People of the Sea were wheeling to their battle-
stations. Already, Anglo-Saxondom had flung its first bulwark across
the world.
It was the commencement of the Great Cleansing!
PART FOUR
CRISIS
 §1
To comprehend the deliberate sacrifice which Peter Jameson
made for the cause of humanity, it is essential that you should
realize both the man and the offering he brought. It was not,
primarily, the sacrifice of money, but the giving-up of a great
ambition. For money, regarded purely as the purchase price of
material comfort, he cared very little. As a spender, he had small
sympathy with the exotic luxury of his time. His amusements were
essentially simple—a gun, a trout-rod, a horse, a good glass of wine.
All these, he might have possessed without working.
But Peter had been picked up, while still a boy, into the
fascinating game of business; and in that game he had found both
work (which was vital to his temperament) and enjoyment. His
personal qualities—resoluteness, concentration on the immediate
job, a certain creative instinct, clear thinking, moral courage and a
controlled imagination—fitted him eminently for the sport of
commerce.
Nirvana Limited, which would have been to the average individual
merely a machine for the making of an income, represented to Peter
Jameson—at the outbreak of war—the ultimate aim in life. He loved
that business, not only for the sake of what it might eventually bring
him, but for itself. He loved it, like a good gardener loves his garden,
as much for the labour as for the result. He had seen it grow, in six
years, from starved plant to a goodly tree—fruit almost ripe for the
plucking. He felled that tree deliberately, in cold blood, under no
compulsion save that of his own soul. And he waved no flags to
console him for the felling!
For the man was, despite the admixture of Miraflores strain, an
Anglo-Saxon: responded—though he knew it not—to the blind spirit
of that race which came out of Italy through France, welded itself to
dour Saxon and berserk Viking, and so spread, fighting always but
always fighting as an ultimate issue for Independence, to Virginia
and Quebec, to the Falkland Islands and the Hebrides, to South
Africa and Australasia; till it became—scarcely conscious of its own
oneness—the final arbiter in the great world-struggle of Decency
against the filthy doctrines of the Beasts in Gray.
And behind the man, equally resolute, equally blind to the spirit
which moved her, stood Patricia, the Anglo-Saxon woman—
thoroughbred, unflinching.
 §2
England’s declaration of war did not make Peter Jameson “burn
to avenge gallant little Belgium,” or eager, in the phraseology of the
period, “to do his bit.” His commercial position was too damned
awkward for the indulgence of any such sentiments.
He left Wargrave at ten o’clock on the morning of August the
fifth; and reached the outskirts of London in forty-five minutes. Then
he gave the wheel to Murray, and began to think. Throughout, his
hand had been perfectly steady at the throttle, his foot firm on the
accelerator. Their speed had averaged forty miles an hour.
Behind him, in the tonneau, sat Francis Gordon, acting as always
on inspiration rather than reason, decision already reached. Francis
Gordon talked to himself, under his breath: first in Dutch and then in
German. He was testing, not his knowledge of those languages, but
his accent. “Ich kann es tun. Ich bin einer der einzigen die es tun
konnen,” he muttered. Then he began to recite, very slowly and
almost inaudibly, the first speech from Schiller’s Republican Tragedy:
Leonora. “Nichts mehr. Nichts mehr. Kein Wort mehr.
Es ist am Tag.”[1]
Peter was not talking to himself; had reached no decision. His
brain went over the salient facts of the situation; weighing them up.
Discarding details. Selecting essentials. The Jameson-Beckmann
problem must wait. How would Nirvana be affected? Home-trade, for
the moment at any rate, would collapse. The export-business might
hold up. Might. Probably wouldn’t. Remained the fact that if the
worst came to the worst he stood to loose seventeen thousand
pounds. . . . After all, people must smoke. Wars didn’t last for ever.
Could he see the thing through? Financially? . . .
“London & Joint Stock Bank, Pall Mall,” he said to the chauffeur.
They swirled through Piccadilly; nipped round past the Ritz;
slowed down St. James’ Street; and pulled up.
 “Afraid I can’t lend you the car, old man,” said Peter. “I shall want
it all day. Are you coming down again to-night?”
“No,” answered Francis. “Prout’s bringing up my things on the
afternoon train.” He stepped out of the tonneau; brushed himself
carefully; and walked off down Pall Mall. Peter, telling Murray to wait,
climbed the flat steps to the glass doors of the Bank. They were
closed: but his knock brought a commissionaire, who recognized
him; opened them.
“No business today, sir,” said the commissionaire.
“Manager in?” asked Peter.
“Yes, sir.”
“Ask him if he’ll see me.”
The Bank, always quiet, seemed—that morning—like a tomb.
Clerks bent over their ledgers; lights burned: but no customers
waited at the iron-grilled counters, no sovereigns clinked in the brass
shovels.
“Step this way, sir,” said the commissionaire.
Peter followed him across the stone floor, through the glass
doorway into the manager’s parlour—soft-carpeted, lavishly
furnished with dark mahogany and saddle-bag chairs.
Mr. Davis, the branch-manager, was a gray-bearded man with the
clothes of a prince and the manners of a diplomat. As a West End
Branch, “Pall Mall” did not seek mercantile business. They had taken
the Nirvana account, officially, “to oblige their old client Mr. Jameson,
whose private account they had handled for so many years.” This
courtesy had not gone as far as a reduction in their usual rates of
interest!
“Good morning, Mr. Jameson. I half expected you.” Mr. Davis
rose; shook hands. “Won’t you take a seat?”
“Thanks. I came to ask you about the financial position. This war,
you know. The papers talk about a moratorium. I understand that to
mean a suspension of credit. . . .”
“Only in extreme cases, Mr. Jameson. Only in extreme cases. Of
course, we are not desirous, at the moment, of increasing facilities.
We are, if I may use the expression, sitting on the fence. But my
directors—I have a letter from them before me now—are anxious for
me to impress on all our clients, that they do not anticipate any
financial crisis. Measures, as I am given to believe, have been taken;
temporary expedients adopted; by which. . . .” He went on to explain
them, at some length.
“Then I take it,” said Peter, “that on the resumption of banking-
business. . . .”
“Matters will be exactly as they were a week ago.” Mr. Davis rose
again, shook hands, made his point courteously. “Naturally, Mr.
Jameson, as Nirvana Limited will not be under the necessity of
making payments, they will not require any addition to the overdraft
which you have guaranteed for them.”
“Of course not,” said Peter. The interview had turned out
according to anticipation. If Nirvana wanted any more money, it
would have to be found in cash.
He stood for a moment on the steps of the Bank. London had not
altered in a night. The straight aristocratic thoroughfare seemed a
little busier than usual. That was all. Then he looked for the gaudy
sentries outside Marlborough House; saw that they were in khaki!
“The factory, please, Murray; and as fast as you can,” said our Mr.
Jameson. . . .

[1] “No more. No more. Not a word more. It is the

Day.”
 §3
To describe “Pretty” Bramson as nervous, would be a gross
understatement. The man was scared stiff; had been for two days.
Peter found him wandering about the half-empty building—(the
English workman does not usually put in an appearance till twenty-
four hours after “Bank Holiday”)—damp cigarette between his lips,
white about the gills, alternatively fidgeting and depressed. The
famous black moustaches were distinctly out of curl: the brilliantined
hair lacked its usual polish.
“Morning, Bramson. You look rather out of sorts.”
Bramson led melancholy way into the private office.
“It’s all U P with us now,” he said. “We’re ruined. That’s about the
long and short of it.”
“Rats!” snapped Peter, lighting a cigar.
“The Bank will be down on us for that overdraft. . . .”
“Don’t be a fool. To begin with, they can’t call in any loans.
There’s a moratorium. Secondly, if they do want their money, I can
pay it. Do you really think I guarantee liabilities I can’t meet?”
“I hadn’t thought of the moratorium,” began Bramson, plucking
up courage.
Peter, puffing slowly at his cigar, got over the flash of temper.
“Worried about that thousand of yours?” he queried suddenly.
“No-o. Not exactly. But. . . .”
“You are worried. Of course you’re worried. So am I. So’s
everybody else. Let me remind you that I’ve got twelve thousand
pounds in the concern, in addition to that confounded overdraft. But
we shan’t either of us save our money by worrying. For goodness’
sake, pull yourself together, man. Let’s have a look at last month’s
figures. . . .”
Bramson went to the safe; opened it; took out some papers “Get
a pencil,” said Peter, “and write down what I tell you. . . . Ready. . . .
Right. . . . Now then: Assets . . .” He dictated steadily; picking out
the amounts from the big type-written statement. “Liabilities. . . .”
The dictation continued. “That’s the lot, I think. Add them up
please.”
Bramson read out the figures: “Assets £27,862, Liabilities,
including overdraft, £22,396.”
“Which means,” commented Peter, “that your thousand and my
twelve are worth—about five between them. Roughly forty cents on
the dollar. If we could sell the factory as a going concern.”
“You haven’t taken anything for the good-will of the business,”
put in Bramson.
“Of course I haven’t. That’s the whole question. Up to the end of
last month, we were making profits. That was why you bought
Turkovitch’s shares, wasn’t it? Do you think we’re going to make a
profit this month?”
“We might.”
“Forget it,” said Peter genially. “The best we can hope for is to
nurse the show through this damned war—if it doesn’t last too long.
Now listen to me. . . .”
He plunged into details, giving his orders succinctly. This must
go: that be curtailed. Publicity account, selling expenses,
manufacturing charges, clerical work—Peter dealt with each seriatim,
hardly referring to the figures on the table. “As for the finance,” he
concluded, “I’ll deal with that myself. But mind you, the whole
thing’s a gamble . . . Play poker, Bramson?” he asked suddenly.
“Occasionally.”
“Well, if you ever put up your last table-stake to bluff the jack-pot
on a busted flush—you’ll understand the present position of Nirvana
Limited.”
Two minutes later the car was purring Citywards.
 §4
Passing over London Bridge, through Gracechurch Street and
Fenchurch Street, Peter saw that the City had in no wise altered. The
same drays, motor-omnibuses, taxicabs and motor-cars fought their
way through its streets. The same bareheaded clerks hurried along
its pavements. The same hawkers proffered the same wares. Only
the closed doors of the banking-houses portended the unusual.
In his own office at Lime Street nothing spoke of world-crisis.
Parkins still sat at the enquiry desk. Old George was still dusting
cigar boxes. Miss Macpherson’s typewriter clicked and tinkled from
the clerks’ office beyond the stock-rooms. Simpson, just back from
his chop at “The George and Vulture” showed no signs of
depression. He, too, had interviewed his bank manager.
“And what did Smollett say about Beckmann’s bills?” asked Peter.
“It looks as though we shall have to meet them after the
moratorium,” said Simpson. “You see they’ve been discounted
through an English bank. As far as I can make out, Beckmann’s
aren’t technically Germans at all. The firm’s domiciled in a neutral
country—so Smollett says. . . .”
“Do you mean to say we shall be allowed to go on importing the
brand?”
“I don’t see why not,” said Simpson.
That there could be any patriotic reasons for not trading with
Beckmanns, did not strike them. The war was not yet twenty-four
hours old; and neither the obtuse Simpson nor the concentrated
Peter had realized it as more than a disturber of business.
“Elkins and Beresford will be sure to try and use this to prejudice
customers against the brand,” suggested Peter.
“Let them.” Somehow, the crisis seemed to have nerved
Simpson. Peter never remembered him so decided.
“We must go slow,” was his verdict. “Of course trade will
absolutely disappear for the first week or so. Then it’ll begin to pick
up again. There’ll be no difficulty about supplies. Whatever happens
on land, our Navy’s got the Germans beaten at sea. Go slow, and
keep our resources liquid—that’s my idea. . . . By the way, how
about that factory of yours?”
Peter hesitated a moment—Simpson had always been rather
hostile about Nirvana—then said, “I’ve been up there this morning.
Bramson’s rather rattled. We shall have to go slow there too. It’s a
pity the brand couldn’t have had another two years’ hard advertising
before this happened. As it is—everything depends on how long the
war lasts. If it goes on more than six months, I may have to find a
partner. That means parting with a big slice of my shares. You see, I
don’t feel I ought to take any more of my capital out of this
business.”
“No. I agree with you there. Though if it became absolutely
necessary. . . . By the way, you won’t mind my saying so, but I never
understood why you took on ‘Pretty’ Bramson. He hasn’t got a very
good reputation in the trade. And then his cousin Marcus being a
competitor. . . .”
“Oh, he’s not a bad little chap.” Peter, like all good men of
business, was over-loyal to his staff. “The only trouble is that he
hasn’t got much guts. But he’s all right as long as you keep an eye
on him. . . . Good Lord, it’s nearly three o’clock, and that poor devil
of a chauffeur of mine hasn’t had his lunch yet.”
“Had any yourself?” asked Simpson.
It was the one detail of the day which our Mr. Jameson had
forgotten!
 §5
“And are we quite ruined?” chaffed Patricia as they finished
dinner the same evening. Prout and the Rawlings had taken the
afternoon train to town, leaving her lonely and—to tell the truth—
more than a little worried.
“Not quite, old thing,” retorted Peter. . . .
But that night, for the first time in years, he woke up suddenly;
saw her sleeping peacefuly in the white bedstead next his own—and
realized that his responsibilities were not exclusively confined to the
financing of Nirvana Limited.
PART FIVE
DECISION
 §1
Passed the first week—a week of rumours and counter-rumours,
barren of certainty. Mealy-souled politicians,—protected by a Navy
they had done their best to weaken—gabbled high words of hope.
The few trained men, laughed at for years, departed silently about
their business: the half-trained set themselves to learn. For already,
the spirit of the English-speaking Peoples was astir. Slumbering, the
spirit awoke: a blind spirit, conscious only of resentment, of
independence mysteriously threatened, of Something Wrong in the
world: finding its quaint vent in shibboleth phrases, in deep
drinkings, in wagging of flags: but growing, growing always, not to
be denied. Already, through the domino-cafés of London, at the long
bar in the English Club at Shanghai, in dank bungalows of the Malay
Peninsula, on Canadian ranches and Australian “stations,” there ran
the Word: “I think I ought to go, old boy. Well, mate, are you
going?”
But no Word had yet reached Peter Jameson. The City held him.
For the moment, the old game played itself on.
It was a “quiet” time; but not so bad as he had anticipated.
Jameson’s customers, disregarding the moratorium, paid their
accounts; gave niggling orders. The week’s shipment arrived
punctually from Havana. Nirvana, to the untrained eye, seemed
hardly to have suffered. The four machines stamped and clicked all
day; girls bent over the packing tables; the tin-men pricked and
soldered as before. Only the pink slips of “unfilled orders” dwindled
and dwindled, the piles of unsold cigarettes in the stock-room rose
and rose.
Peter was sitting alone in the back-office at Lime Street, thinking
how soon he would have to begin paying off his “hands,” when
Parkins announced, “Mr. Raymond P. Sellers.”
“What does he want?” asked Peter.
“I think it’s an American gentleman, Sir. He said he had a
‘proposition’ to put before you.”
 “Ask him to come in.”
There entered a clean-shaven young man with gold eye-glasses,
in square-shouldered clothes, square-tipped patent leather shoes,
carrying a Panama hat in one hand and a reporter’s note-book in the
other, who ejaculated: “Say, Mr. Jameson, I’m real glad to meet you,”
in a voice which no citizen of the United States ever used on land or
sea.
Peter started to shake hands; looked up at his visitor; and burst
out, “Francis, you blithering idiot, what on earth are you doing in
that get-up?”
Francis looked round to see if the door were closed. Then he
said, in his ordinary voice, “It is a bit grotesque, isn’t it? But as the
special representative of an anonymous American newspaper
syndicate, I think it will pass for the next few days.”
“You always were a bit of a lunatic,” said Peter gruffly, “but this is
the limit. What do you propose doing in your fancy-dress?”
“I’m leaving for Amsterdam on tonight’s boat, if you want to
know,” answered Francis. “After that, my plans depend on
circumstances. Look here,” he became suddenly serious, “this isn’t a
joke. I should get into the devil’s own row if ‘they’ knew I’d been
down here. You mustn’t tell a soul, Peter. Honestly. Not even
Patricia. I know it sounds like a penny-novelette—but most of the
penny-novelettes are coming true at the moment. Word of honour,
old man, you won’t tell a soul.”
Peter glanced at his cousin; saw that the slackness had
disappeared from his face. The lips were tight-set, the eyes dark
with suppressed emotion.
“Word of honour, Francis. I won’t tell a soul. Not even Patricia.
Why did you come here though, if it was against—” he stumbled
over the word—“orders?”
“Because there’s no one else I can trust. It’s a question of my
correspondence, and the flat. I want you to look Prout up
occasionally. He thinks I’ve enlisted. Here”—he fumbled in his pocket
—“are eight letters for him. From me. Have one posted every three
weeks. I’ve pencilled the dates on the flap. You can get some one to
post them from the country, I suppose.” Peter took the letters;
nodded comprehension. “There’s a cheque in each of them, so you
needn’t worry about giving the older bounder any money. I’ve told
him you’ll call, and that he’s to give you any correspondence that
comes for me.”
“What am I to do with it?” asked Peter.
Francis hesitated a perceptible second before saying, “I want you
to open everything that comes except—letters from America. Answer
them all. Say I’m away, if you like. Joined the Army. I don’t think
there’ll be any bills. If there are, they can wait.”
“And the letters from America?”
“Those, I don’t want you to open on any account. Keep them for
me till I come back. If you don’t hear from me in six months, better
say eight months, burn them. And post this.” He took another
envelope from his pocket, handed it to Peter, who saw, in his
cousin’s sprawly handwriting, “Miss B. Cochrane. C/o The Guaranty
Trust Company of New York. To be forwarded.”
There was the usual awkward silence which betokens sentiment
among English people. Then Peter got up, walked over to the safe,
pulled out his private cash-box, and locked up the letters.
“That’ll be all right,” he said. “But why eight months? You don’t
expect the war to last as long as that, do you?”
Came footsteps outside, a hand at the door-catch.
“Well, good-bye, Mr. Jameson. I’m sure I’m very much obliged to
you for the information.”
Mr. “Raymond Sellers” shook hands effusively; half bowed to
Simpson, and departed.
“Who was that chap?” asked Peter’s partner.
“That was only . . .” Peter stopped himself in time, “an American
newspaper fellow—cadging advertisements for one of their trade-
journals.”
“Tobacco Leaf or the other one?”
“The other one,” said Peter nonchalantly.
 §2
To Peter Jameson’s rather narrow imagination, as yet untouched
by the new melodramatic world, the whole interview with Francis
appeared fantastic. He could neither visualize the steps which
preceded that interview—the coming of the idea, the remembering
of an old school-friend in the Foreign Office, the chivvying about
from pillar to post necessary for the securing of “peculiar”
employment, the two days of schooling by the quiet little civilian at
“S,” the final instructions; nor the resultant arrival of “Mr. Raymond P.
Sellers” at a certain hotel in Amsterdam, where he waited in his
clean bedroom overlooking the canal till a very ordinary-looking
Dutch merchant—having closed the door carefully behind him—said,
“Hello, Gordon. I didn’t know you were one of us.” . . .
No! Peter certainly couldn’t visualize his cousin in the rôle of a
secret-service agent. And such a secret-service agent—Philips
Oppenheim in the flesh! He remembered, of course, that Francis had
always been rather a dab at languages; remembered his talking
German at a not too savoury dancing-hall in Singapore where they
had once foregathered.
But surely there never was a man so utterly unfitted for such a
job, so absolutely certain to make a muck of it, as Francis Gordon.
“Fantastic,” decided our Mr. Jameson; and went on with his work.
 §3
Nevertheless, the interview left its mark in more ways than the
pencilled notes “Post F’s letters” in Peter’s business-diary.
Two more weeks drifted by; news, unsatisfactorily scanty at the
beginning, grew unsatisfactorily complete. So far, the enemy had it
all their own way. Business, on the other hand, showed a tendency
to revive—Nirvana business especially. With the economies effected,
a little more trade—provided nothing interfered with their exports—
would ensure them against actual loss. Bramson had cheered up,
Simpson and the cigar-business dropped back into their usual
lethargy. But our Mr. Jameson, for the first time in years, felt himself
lacking in concentration.
This lack of concentration, as he carefully explained to himself,
was in no wise due to the bad news. As an Englishman, and one
who vaguely recollected the South African campaign, he had never
expected a walk-over. Things looked pretty bad at the moment. Paris
might possibly fall—though it hardly seemed likely. That would be
awkward, of course: but by no means an irretrievable disaster. . . .
Nor, he decided, had business anxieties affected his grip of things
financial. Nirvana could be saved. The main problem had been
grappled with. Now—granted his continued personal attention—it
was only a question of patience. . . . Then, why the devil this
strange inability to concentrate, this growing annoyance?
A good many people had begun to annoy Peter—Julius
Hagenburg among others. The man, proud possessor of a British
naturalization certificate taken out in 1912, had of course every right
to change his name if he thought fit. But Peter could not get
accustomed to him as “James Hartopp, Esq.” And his loud-mouthed
patriotism, even though he had squared off almost all his old
account, and given a large order, somehow offended.
There were a good many such naturalized Germans in the
Havana cigar-trade; many of them with sons who had already
enlisted. But every time he met one of them—old Schornstein, for
instance, with his “Ve must vait and see, my poy. Ve must vait and
see,” or Blumberg eager to explain that “De liperal barty had saved
de gountry,”—Peter experienced a new prejudice.
But Jameson’s connexion with Beckmanns provided the crowning
annoyance of all. Peter and Simpson had decided—as soon as the
legal position became clear—that it would be ridiculous to stop
importing the brand immediately. They must, of course, do their best
to replace the goods with those of another factory. On the other
hand, to give them up without finding a substitute, would merely
mean turning over an important advantage to some less-scrupulous
competitor.
Still,—whatever the “Proclamation as to trading with the Enemy”
might say about “firms domiciled in neutral countries”—Peter could
not get out of his mind that the actual owners of the concern were
Germans. Every Friday afternoon, as Simpson dictated his careful
letter to them, ending with the old stereotyped phrasing “with kind
regards, Yours very sincerely,” Peter would remember Heinrich
Beckmann, in his heavy boots, his black tail-coat, his hard bowler-
hat, iron-moustached and curt of phrase, gobbling oysters and
swilling wine at Fortis’; would see young Albert Beckmann, fat,
flabby, blond, over-manicured, frothing glass at his lips, eyeing the
Tänzerinnen in the gaudy night-club where they had celebrated the
signing of the contract. “Huns,” Peter would say to himself—(the
appellation “Hun” had just come into vogue)—“bloody Huns!”
 §4
But in addition to this growing revulsion against the enemy—
(dislike of the Germans had been ingrained in the man’s character
since his first day in business)—the thousand emotional flea-bites of
the period began to affect Peter. That he could be hearing whispers
of the English-speaking spirit—the spirit that was even then driving
Francis Gordon, nervous to the depths of his imaginative soul, into
dangers beyond belief, dangers that had to be faced in cold blood
and absolutely alone—never struck the Chairman of Nirvana Limited.
He was conscious only of a Questioning; it seemed as though
every one and everything asked him something, something he could
not answer.
The morning newspaper began that Questioning. It lurked,
somehow or other, behind the war-news, the casualty-lists. More
than one name which conjured up the face of a boy known at Eton,
figured in those early columns. Challis minor, in his own house, who
had held onto his position till the last moment: “dying,” wrote his
Colonel to his mother, “as I am sure you would have wished him to
die.” Latham of the Artillery, who had fought his gun single-handed
till he dropped dead over the breech-block. Peter caught himself
trying to explain to a shadowy Challis minor how impossible it was
for certain people, people with responsibilities like his own, to join
the Army. . . .
Evelyn and Primula too, now back at Lowndes Square,
accentuated uncertainty. They could talk of nothing but the soldiers
they had seen drilling in Kensington Gardens, the motor that had
dashed—astounding phenomenon—down the Broad Walk. They
reminded him of the episode, trivial at the time but constantly
recurring, of Patricia’s brother, Jack Baynet. Jack had been mobilized
with the 6th Division; had asked Peter and Patricia to visit him in
Camp at Cambridge. Peter had promised to go, cried off at the last
moment. One couldn’t very well mingle, an able-bodied civilian in
mufti, with men who were going to France within the week. . . .
 An eternal Questioning! Everything, everybody, seemed an
embodied and personal demand. Everything, everybody—the khaki,
blossoming now like a brown flower at every street-corner; the boy
Parkins who had to be assured that his place would be kept before
he enlisted; a traveller and two mechanics at the factory who went
first and asked afterwards; Miss Macpherson’s eyes when she
dictated the Havana mail; Pat. For Patricia grew very silent those
days. . . .
By the first week in September Peter had solved the Questioning;
reduced it to a question. And the question, briefly, was this: “To join
up meant the almost certain sacrifice of Nirvana. Not to join up,
meant the definite loss of self-respect. Which should he do?” He had
no fear of the soldiering part: on the contrary—being entirely and
blessedly ignorant of warfare’s actualities—it seemed to him the
obvious, glorious and easy solution of his problem. To abandon his
business-responsibilities, on the other hand, implied—quite apart
from the pang of giving up the thing he most loved—a lack of moral
courage, a yielding to popular clamour.
Curiously enough, it was not Patricia but Hubert Rawlings who
clinched Peter’s decision.
 §5
It was a month and three days since the outbreak of war. Paris—
thought Peter, as he sat alone in the back office at Lime Street—was
practically safe. Still, it might easily be six months before the
Cossacks got to Berlin. Meanwhile. . . .
The telephone-bell jangled; he took up the receiver, heard his
brother-in-law’s voice.
“Peter Jameson speaking. . . . That you, Hubert? . . . Right, I’ll be
in if you come along at once.”
Hubert Rawlings, Publicity Agent, had not been worried with any
whispers of the “English-speaking spirit.” The contemptible cry of
“business as usual” found him a ready convert. Government officials,
eager to do anything except fight, had decided on a campaign of
advertising, as wasteful to the country’s purse as it was degrading to
its patriotism; and in Hubert Rawlings they discovered an invaluable
henchman. Posters, leaflets, newspaper-stereos—one more revolting
to decent folk than the other—spawned themselves in his lower-
middle-class mind, spewed themselves over London and the
provinces. Officially, he made no profits on these transactions,
actually. . . . And in addition, there was always the advantage of
being “in with the Government.” One might get . . . Heaven knows
what one mightn’t get. . . . Also, one had “opportunities.”
Such an “opportunity” brought Hubert Rawlings to Peter’s office.
He came in, silk-hatted, morning-coated, flower in buttonhole,
perfectly at ease. Already his voice had assumed a faint touch of the
“Whitehall manner.”
“How do you do, Peter?” he said. “I hope you didn’t wait for me.”
“Afternoon, Hubert. Take a pew. What’s the trouble?”
“I came,” announced Rawlings mysteriously, “to ask you if you’d
like to have a share in a—little deal some friends of mine are
interested in. I need hardly tell you it’s all fair and above-board, or of
course I shouldn’t have anything to do with it. Still—” he dropped his
voice. “Naturally, anything I say remains strictly between the two of
us.”
“Of course,” said Peter.
“It’s like this,” went on Rawlings. “I, we, happen to know that
there will shortly be a big demand for a certain article.” Encouraged
by Peter’s non-committal attitude, he waxed confidential. “I may as
well tell you what the article is. It’s overcoats.”
“Overcoats?”
“Yes. For Kitchener’s Army. You know, I presume, that owing to
shortage of dye, there has been a delay in the deliveries of khaki. A
very serious delay. So the men are to be provided, as a temporary
expedient, with civilian great-coats. Ready-made. Do you follow me
so far?”
“Perfectly,” said Peter stiffly. The other, had he been looking,
might have noticed a dangerous quietness in his brother-in-law’s
attitude.
“Now I, we, have an option on ten thousand of these overcoats.
There are four of us in the deal so far. The coats work out, for cash,
at fifteen shillings. . . . The War Office is paying twenty-five. That”—
the voice became unctuous—“means a profit of. . . .”
“Five thousand pounds,” snapped Peter. For a moment, old habits
asserted themselves; he was tempted. A thousand more for Nirvana!
Then all the emotions of four weeks blazed into cold flame. He got
up from his chair, eyes black with rage; controlled himself in time;
and said slowly:—
“Don’t slam the door as you go out, Rawlings.”
“But surely . . .” began the other.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Damn your eyes, will you get out of this office before I throw
you out? . . .”
Rawlings went.
 §6
Two nights later—at the very moment when the Beasts in Gray,
muttering “Grosses Malheur” as they shuffled through darkling
towns, were reeling back to the Aisne before the Armies of France
and a handful of Englishmen—Peter Jameson and his wife sat over
their coffee in the drawing-room at Lowndes Square.
All through dinner, he had been absorbed and reticent. Now, he
put down his empty cup on the little table by the side of his
armchair; took a long pull at his cigar; began to speak. For a month
she had watched him; speculated about him; hoped; doubted;
realized his difficulties. But she had given no hint of her feelings: this
was a matter for a man’s own conscience; no woman, not even his
wife, possessed the right to influence him.
“I want to talk to you,” he said.
“Yes, dear.” A little of what he must say, she knew. Her eyes
kindled to the prospect of it.
“Pat,” he began, “I don’t think I can keep out of this thing any
longer. It wouldn’t be”—he fumbled for the expression—“quite
playing the game. But if I go, there are risks. . . .”
“Naturally.” She schooled her voice to calmness.
“I don’t mean those sort of risks. If anything happened to me,
the Insurance would be paid. I went round to see the Phoenix
People about that this morning.” Unaccountably, the reasonableness
of the view irritated her. “I mean business risks. To begin with,
there’s the factory.”
He began to talk about Nirvana; tried to show her only the
financial position. His personal feelings, he felt, must not be allowed
to complicate a simple issue. But the intonation of his voice betrayed
the feelings behind it; and she realized, for the first time, how much
Nirvana meant to him.
“You would hate to give it up,” she interrupted.
“It would be rather,” he hesitated for a moment, “a wrench. Still
I’ve discounted that. Of course, the whole thing’s a gamble. But I’m
not going to quit yet. After all, I shan’t go out for some time.
Meanwhile, I can keep in touch. Only I won’t put any more capital
in. If Reid and Bramson between them—I saw Reid yesterday and
he’ll do his best—can manage to keep her going: well and good. If
not, we must cut our losses.”
“Will they be very heavy?”
“They might be. But that isn’t all. . . .”
“Oh, what do you care about losses?” her heart cried out in her.
“He’s going. He’s a man. What else matters?” And then, suddenly,
fear held her, battling down reason, patriotism, pride, everything
except itself. . . .
But the man’s voice went on talking—coolly, logically,
impersonally. That he was voicing the spirit of a great sacrifice, that
Patricia realized the sacrifice, loved him for it, that the “pal” he had
known for eight years existed no longer, had become at a word his
mate, his woman to do with as he would—these things were hidden
both then and for long after from Peter Jameson, cigar
merchant. . . .
“So you see,” he said, summing up the case as he saw it, “it
means a big risk. If the factory goes down, if Jameson’s business
doesn’t improve, if Simpson won’t renew the partnership agreement
in January, if one or any of these things happen, it might mean
giving up this house. . . .”
Inwardly, the bathos of it made her laugh. If he could give up so
much, surely she could give up her little. Reason and the training of
years came to her aid. To him, she was still the pal, only the pal.
Nothing more than that!
“I quite follow, dear,” she said.
“But we won’t consider the black side, old thing. Don’t let’s panic.
The War may be over by Christmas. Till then, we’ll carry on just as
we are. I shan’t even get rid of the motor.”
Now that the awkward task of putting the position before his wife
was over, optimism held him. For a moment, the sense of having
done the right thing blurred his business judgment.
“You’re a topping pal, Pat,” he said to her as they kissed good-
night. . . . But Patricia, waking to the first shimmer of dawn through
the chinks of the silk curtains, felt herself, for the first time, woman
indeed. For now she loved him, utterly, beyond friendship: and lying
there, quite still in her own narrow bed, she vowed this new love to
his service in whatsoever guise he most should need it. . . .
 §7
“The whole thing’s a farce, Pat.”
It was already three weeks since Peter had been promised his
commission; two since his “kit” had been delivered from his tailors.
Outwardly the situation between husband and wife had not
altered. Reason told her that this new love she felt for him could win
its reward only by patience. And she needed all her patience those
days. Disorganization held no humour for Peter Jameson. His
patriotism, if it could have found expression, would have vented
itself in few words: “There’s a job to be done. A rotten job. Let’s do
it, and get back to our businesses.” He was still—in the intervals of
importuning the War Office—running those businesses; hearing
telephoned reports; suggesting this, vetoing that. But more than a
fraction of the old-time keenness had evaporated. The blind spirit of
War had caught him, was carrying him onwards. . . .
He walked over to the bureau between the windows; picked out
a telegraph-form from the racked paper-holder; began to write.
She looked at him across the breakfast-débris—calm, golden-
haired, very fresh in her white blouse, her blue walking-skirt;
guessed, from the bent back, the concentration in his taut brain.
Looking, love leaped into her dark eyes, moistening them.
“I think this’ll do,” he said, turning so suddenly that she scarcely
had time to drop her lashes: “Colonel Thompson. Room 154. War
Office. Reference our recent interview am now ready and shall be
glad of instructions to report for duty. Reply paid. Jameson. 22a,
Lowndes Square, W.”
“You can’t send that,” said Patricia.
“Can’t I?” He rang for Smith, gave instructions for immediate
dispatch of the wire.
 §8
Patricia, coming in from her afternoon walk with the children,
found a tawny envelope on the hall table. The telegram was
addressed “Jameson,” and she opened it casually; felt her heart stop
as though two fingers had clutched it; heard Primula’s voice: “What’s
the matter, Mummy?” . . .
“Nothing’s the matter, dear,” she said calmly. “You and Evelyn had
better go upstairs to Nanny.”
She watched them, running up the broad stone staircase, out of
sight. Then she read the pencilled message again: “Report for duty
10th Chalkshires Shoreham Camp immediately. Thompson. War
Office.”

“What a fool I am,” she said to herself. “What a selfish unpatriotic

fool!”
 PART SIX
PLAYING AT SOLDIERS
 §1
Except for the newness of his “Cavalry-cord” tunic and a slight
lack of suppleness in the carefully-browned belt, nothing about the
quiet gray-eyed young man in the otherwise-empty first-class
compartment on the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway
betrayed the civilian of a day ago. The battered valise and an old-
fashioned Army basin, leather-covered—relics of a trip to the East—
did not smack of the newly-joined. Close-cut dark hair, clipped
moustaches, correctly-wound puttees and dubbined shooting-boots,
completed the illusion. But Peter Jameson’s mind had not yet cast off
its old allegiances.
Rather, as he whirled Sussexwards, did those discarded problems
assume acuter import. One by one he conned over the
arrangements made—fortnightly reports from Lime Street, weekly
statements and a bi-weekly letter from Bramson, accurate statistics
from Reid; wondered if they might have been improved upon. And
speculating on these things, Peter began to feel—for the first time—
the real pang of parting from Nirvana. It was as though he had cut
the main interest out of life; as if the entity of his creating had died.
Symbolically, he seemed to see his two flashing signs, as they had
been before the new lighting restrictions; “NIRVANA OR NOTHING,”
they had blazed. Now, they blazed no more. Nothing!
He pulled his “Infantry Training” from his pocket; began to study
Battalion Drill. “A battalion in mass. . . .”
But the subconscious mind would not visualize battalions either in
mass or other formations. The mind returned to its old love, refused
to be comforted. The mind did not recall the morning’s partings—
with Patricia, careful to display no emotion,—with the children,
excited at their first vision of “Daddy in khaki.” Instead, it called up
figures from balance-sheets, the factory working at full pressure,
that dim-lit back-office in the City: till gradually, came recollection of
Mr. “Raymond P. Sellers.” . . .
 Peter had already posted two of the letters to Prout, visited the
Bloomsbury flat as promised, found everything in order. Only a
photograph, a girl’s photograph, was missing. And that, Peter had
not noticed. But from Francis Gordon himself had come no word.
The War seemed to have swallowed him up, utterly, mysteriously.
So Peter sped on, through the bright countryside, thinking of his
cousin. . . . And at that very moment thousands of miles away, in a
great hotel at Los Angeles, California, a girl said to herself: “Even if
he has gone to the war, it’s mean of him not to write and tell me so.”
She stood at the window for a moment, looking out onto the sunlit
lawn. Till suddenly, the lawn seemed to grow dark. “He can’t have
been killed,” she whispered. “He can’t have been killed.”
It is not easy for “agents in enemy countries” to keep up a
regular correspondence with the young women whose photographs
they carry in their pocket-books!
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