n excuse, a pretence, one more of the sickening,
whining phrases with which you conceal your gluttonous opportunism--"
And so she continued, while I stood silent.

Oh well, all that doesn't matter now,--I'm in a hurry, I want to get
this letter off to you tonight. Luckily there's a letter-box a few
yards away, so I won't have to face much of those awful streets that
are yelling now for England's blood.

I went up and got my things together. I knew Bernd would get the
letter I posted to him this morning telling him I was going to Frau
Berg's tomorrow, so I felt safe about seeing him, even if he didn't
come in to the Koseritzes before I left. But he did come in. He came
just as I was going downstairs carrying my violin-case--how foolish and
outside of life that music business seems now--and he seized my hand
and took me into the drawingroom.

"Not in here, not in here!" cried the Grafin, getting up excitedly.
"Not again, not ever again does an Englishwoman come into my
drawingroom--"

Bernd went to her and drew her hand through his arm and led her
politely to the door, which he shut after her. Then he came back to
me. "You know, Chris," he said, "about England?"

"Of course--just listen," I answered, for in the street newsboys were
yelling _Kriegserklarung Englands_, and there was a great dull roaring
as of a multitude of wild beasts who have been wounded.

"You must go to your mother at once--tomorrow," he said. "Before
you're noticed, before there's been time to make your going difficult."

I told him the Grafin had asked me to leave, and I was coming here
tonight. He wasted no words on the Koseritzes, but was anxious lest
Frau Berg mightn't wish to take me in now. He said he would come with
me and see that she did, and place me under her care as part of
himself. "And tomorrow you run. You run to Switzerland, without
telling Frau Berg or a soul where you are going," he said. "You just
go out, and don't come back. I'll settle with Frau Berg afterwards.
You go to the Anhalter station--on your feet, Chris, as though you were
going for a walk--and get into the first train for Geneva, Zurich,
Lausanne, anywhere as long as it's Switzerland. You'll want all your
intelligence. Have you money enough?"

"Yes, yes," I said, feeling every second was precious and shouldn't be
wasted; but he opened my violin-case and put a lot of banknotes into it.

"And have you courage enough?" he asked, taking my face in h