e next."

Michael laughed.

"As for that," he said, "I made an uncommonly bad soldier. But I am an
even worse golfer. As for cricket--"

Falbe again interrupted.

"Ah, then at last I know two things about you," he said. "You were a
soldier and you can't play golf. I have never known so little about
anybody after three--four days. However, what is our proverb? 'Live and
learn.' But it takes longer to learn than to live. Eh, what nonsense I
talk."

He spoke with a sudden irritation, and the laugh at the end of his
speech was not one of amusement, but rather of mockery. To Michael this
mood was quite inexplicable, but, characteristically, he looked about in
himself for the possible explanation of it.

"But what's the matter?" he asked. "Have I annoyed you somehow? I'm
awfully sorry."

Falbe did not reply for a moment.

"No, you've not annoyed me," he said. "I've annoyed myself. But that's
the worst of living on one's nerves, which is the penalty of Baireuth.
There is no charge, so to speak, except for your ticket, but a
collection is made, as happens at meetings, and you pay with your
nerves. You must cancel my annoyance, please. If I showed it I did not
mean to."

Michael pondered over this.

"But I can't leave it like that," he said at length. "Was it about the
possibility of war, which I said was unthinkable?"

Falbe laughed and turned on his elbow towards Michael.

"No, my dear chap," he said. "You may believe it to be unthinkable, and
I may believe it to be inevitable; but what does it matter what either
of us believes? Che sara sara. It was quite another thing that caused me
to annoy myself. It does not matter."

Michael lay back on the soft slope.

"Yet I insist on knowing," he said. "That is, I mean, if it is not
private."

Falbe lay quietly with his long fingers in the sediment of pine-needles.

"Well, then, as it is not private, and as you insist," he said, "I will
certainly tell you. Does it not strike you that you are behaving like an
absolute stranger to me? We have talked of me and my home and my
plans all the time since we met at Victoria Station, and you have kept
complete silence about yourself. I know nothing of you, not who you are,
or what you are, or what your flag is. You fly no flag, you proclaim no
identity. You may be a crossing-sweeper, or a grocer, or a marquis for
all I know. Of course, that matters very little; but what does matter is
that never for a moment have you shown