“Except England,” he said; and whispered, “Oh, thank God, except England.”  Somebody opened the door an inch and told him he must come at once.  I whispered in his ear that I would go back to Berlin tomorrow and be near him.  He went out so quickly that by the time I got into the hall after him the car was tearing down the avenue, and I only caught a flash of the sun on his helmet as he disappeared round the corner.

It has all been so quick.  I can’t believe it quite.  I don’t know what to think, and nobody says anything here.  The Grafin, when I ask her what she thinks, says soothingly that I needn’t worry my little head—­my little head!  As though I were six, and made of sugar—­and that everything will settle down again.  “Europe is in an excited state,” she says placidly, “and suspects danger round every corner, and when it has reached the corner and looked round it, it finds nothing there after all.  It has happened often before, and will no doubt happen again.  Go to bed, my child, and forget politics.  Leave them to older and more experienced heads.  Always our Kaiser has been on the side of peace, and we can trust him to smooth down Austria’s ruffled feathers.”

Greatly doubting her Kaiser, after all I’ve heard of him at Kloster’s, I was too polite to be anything but silent, and came up to my room obediently.  If there is war, then Bernd—­oh well, I’m tired.  I don’t think I’ll write any more tonight.  But I do love you so very much, darling mother.

  Your Chris.

What a mercy that mothers are women, and needn’t go away and fight.  Wouldn’t it have been too awful if they had been men!

  Koseritz, Saturday, July 25th, 1914.

You know, my beloved one, I’d much rather be at Frau Berg’s in Berlin and independent, and able to see Bernd whenever he can come, without saying dozens of thank you’s and may I’s to anybody each time, and I had arranged to go today, and now the Grafin won’t let me.  She says she’ll take me up on Monday when she and Helena go.  They’re going for a short time because they want to be nearer any news there is than they are here, and she says it wouldn’t be right for her, so nearly my aunt, to allow me, so nearly her niece, to stay by myself in a pension while she is in her house in the next street.  What would people say? she asked—­was wurden die Leute sagen, as every German before doing or refraining from doing a thing invariably inquires.  They all from top to bottom seem to walk in terror of die Leute and what they would sagen.  So I’m to go to her house in the Sommerstrasse, and live in chaperoned splendour for as long as she is there.  She says she is certain my mother would wish it.  I’m not a hit certain, I who know my mother and know how beautifully empty she is of conventions and how divinely indifferent to die Leute; but as I’m going to marry a German of the Junker class I suppose I must appease his relations,—­at