She does go, and we all do stir, and party is broken up—but can quite feel that it has been a success.
Serena, the Refugees and I, see everybody off into depths of blackness unlit by single gleam of light anywhere at all, and Serena says they'll be lucky if they don't all end up with broken legs, and if they do, heaven knows where they'll go as no patients allowed in any of the Hospitals.
One of her Refugees informs her, surprisingly, that the blackout is nothing—nothing at all. Vienna has always been as dark as this, every night, for years—darker, if anything.
Serena and I and the Refugees finish such sandwiches as are left, she presses cigarettes on them and in return they carry away all the plates and glasses and insist that they will wash them and put them away—please—and Serena and I are not to do anything but rest ourselves—please, please.
Thank you, thank you.
Please.
November 21st.—Am startled as never before on receiving notification that my services as a writer are required, and may even take me abroad.
Am unable to judge whether activities will permit of my continuing a diary but prefer to suppose that they will be of too important a nature.
Ask myself whether war, as term has hitherto been understood, can be going to begin at last. Reply, of sorts, supplied by Sir Auckland Geddes over the wireless.
Sir A. G. finds himself obliged to condemn the now general practice of running out into the street in order to view aircraft activities when engaged with the enemy overhead.
Can only hope that Hitler may come to hear of this remarkable reaction to his efforts, on the part of the British.
THE END
Zella Sees Herself (1915)
PROLOGUE
THE French window of the dining-room at Villetswood stood wide open, disclosing a glittering perspective of white cloth laden with silver and flowers and gilt candlesticks crowned by pink shades.
Gisèle de Kervoyou, aged seven, balanced herself on one foot upon the threshold of the window.
She was gazing eagerly at the beautiful, gleaming vista, repeated in the great mirror at the far end of the room. With a gesture that was essentially un-English, the child shrugged her shoulders together, stepped very daintily into the dining-room, and approached the table. Her dark grey eyes were narrowed together, her head thrown back as though to catch any possible sound, and she moved as gracefully and as soundlessly as a kitten.
With tiny dexterous fingers she abstracted some three or four chocolate bon-bons from as many little silver dessert-dishes, thrust one into her mouth, and the others into the diminutive pocket of her white frock. Then for the first time she looked guilty, flung a terrified glance round her, and fled noiselessly across the room and out into the garden again.
"Zella! aren't you coming ?"
"Yes, yes."
Zella ran across the terrace to the big oak-tree where her cousins, James and Muriel Lloyd-Evans, wore earnestly engaged in digging a passage through
