The entire household became interested in Herr Heinrich’s attacks upon Bill’s affection. They watched his fingers with particular interest because it was upon those that Bill vented his failures to respond to the stroking advances.
“Today I have stroked him once and he has bitten me three times,” Herr Heinrich reported. “Soon I will stroke him three times and he shall not bite me at all. … Also yesterday he climbed up me and sat on my shoulder, and suddenly bit my ear. It was not hard he bit, but sudden.
“He does not mean to bite,” said Herr Heinrich. “Because when he has bit me he is sorry. He is ashamed.
“You can see he is ashamed.”
Assisted by the two small boys, Herr Heinrich presently got a huge bough of oak and brought it into his room, converting the entire apartment into the likeness of an aviary. “For this,” said Herr Heinrich, looking grave and diplomatic through his glasses, “Billy will be very grateful. And it will give him confidence with me. It will make him feel we are in the forest together.”
Mrs. Britling came to console her husband in the matter.
“It is not right that the bedroom should be filled with trees. All sorts of dust and litter came in with it.”
“If it amuses him,” said Mr. Britling.
“But it makes work for the servants.”
“Do they complain?”
“No.”
“Things will adjust themselves. And it is amusing that he should do such a thing. …”
And now Billy had disappeared, and Herr Heinrich was on the verge of tears. It was so ungrateful of Billy. Without a word.
“They leave my window open,” he complained to Mr. Direck. “Often I have askit them not to. And of course he did not understand. He has out climbit by the ivy. Anything may have happened to him. Anything. He is not used to going out alone. He is too young.
“Perhaps if I call—”
And suddenly he had gone off round the house crying: “Beelee! Beelee! Here is an almond for you! An almond, Beelee!”
“Makes me want to get up and help,” said Mr. Direck. “It’s a tragedy.”
Everybody else was helping. Even the gardener and his boy knocked off work and explored the upper recesses of various possible trees.
“He is too young,” said Herr Heinrich, drifting back. … And then presently: “If he heard my voice I am sure he would show himself. But he does not show himself.”
It was clear he feared the worst. …
At supper Billy was the sole topic of conversation, and condolence was in the air. The impression that on the whole he had displayed rather a brutal character was combated by Herr Heinrich, who held that a certain brusqueness was Billy’s only fault, and told anecdotes, almost sacred anecdotes, of the little creature’s tenderer, nobler side. “When I feed him always he says, ‘Thank you,’ ” said Herr Heinrich. “He never fails.” He betrayed darker thoughts. “When I went round by the barn there was a cat that sat and looked at me out of a laurel bush,” he said. “I do not like cats.”
Mr. Lawrence Carmine, who had dropped in, was suddenly reminded of that lugubrious old ballad, “The Mistletoe Bough,” and recited large worn fragments of it impressively. It tells of how a beautiful girl hid away in a chest during a Christmas game of hide-and-seek, and how she was found, a dried vestige, years afterwards. It took a very powerful hold upon Herr Heinrich’s imagination. “Let us now,” he said, “make an examination of every box and cupboard and drawer. Marking each as we go. …”
When Mr. Britling went to bed that night, after a long gossip with Carmine about the Brahmo Samaj and modern developments of Indian thought generally, the squirrel was still undiscovered.
The worthy modern thinker undressed slowly, blew out his candle and got into bed. Still meditating deeply upon the God of the Tagores, he thrust his right hand under his pillow according to his usual practice, and encountered something soft and warm and active. He shot out of bed convulsively, lit his candle, and lifted his pillow discreetly.
He discovered the missing Billy looking crumpled and annoyed.
For some moments there was a lively struggle before Billy was gripped. He chattered furiously and bit Mr. Britling twice. Then Mr. Britling was out in the passage with the wriggling lump of warm fur in his hand, and paddling along in the darkness to the door of Herr Heinrich. He opened it softly.
A startled white figure sat up in bed sharply.
“Billy,” said Mr. Britling by way of explanation, dropped his capture on the carpet, and shut the door on the touching reunion.
§ 3
A day was to come when Mr. Britling was to go over the history of that sunny July with incredulous minuteness, trying to trace the real succession of events that led from the startling crime at Sarajevo to Europe’s last swift rush into war. In a sense it was untraceable; in a sense it was so obvious that he was amazed the whole world had not watched the coming of disaster. The plain fact of the case was that there was no direct connection; the Sarajevo murders were dropped for two whole weeks out of the general consciousness, they went out of the papers, they ceased to be discussed; then they were picked up again and used as an excuse for war. Germany, armed so as to be a threat to all the world, weary at last of her mighty vigil, watching the course of events, decided that her moment had come, and snatched the dead archduke out of his grave again to serve her tremendous ambition.
It may well have seemed to the belligerent German patriot that all her possible foes were confused, divided within themselves, at an extremity of distraction and impotence. The British
