George spent the first few days of August wandering about London, taking buses, and buying innumerable editions of newspapers. London seemed perfectly calm and as usual, and yet there was something feverish about it. Perhaps it was George's own feverishness exteriorised; perhaps it was the unwonted number of special editions, with shouting newsboys in unusual places handing out copies as fast as they could to little groups of impatient people. His memories of those days were confused, and he couldn't remember the chronological order of events. Two or three scenes stood out vividly in his mind - all the rest became a blur, the outlines obliterated by more dreadful scenes.
He remembered dining with Elizabeth and some other friends in a private suite of the Berkeley as the guests of a wealthy American. The talk kept running on the possibility of war, and the positions of England and America. George still clung to the great illusion that wars between the highly industrialised countries were impossible. He elaborated this view to the American man, who agreed, and said that Wall Street and Threadneedle Street between them could stop the universe.
``If there is a war,'' said George, ``it will be a sort of impersonal, natural calamity, like a plague or an earthquake. But I think that in their own interests all the governments will combine to avert it, or at least limit it to Austria and Servia.''
``But don't you think the Germans are spoiling for a war?'' said another Englishman.
``I don't know, I simply don't know. What does any of us know? The governments don't tell us what they're doing or planning. We're completely in the dark. We can make surmises, but we don't know.''
``It's probably got to come sooner or later. The world's too small to hold an expanding Germany and a non-contracting British Empire.''
``The irresistible force and the immovable mass. . . . But it's not a question of England and Germany, but of Austria and Servia.''
``Oh, the murder of the Archduke's just a pretext - probably arranged beforehand.''
``But by which side? I can't see the situation as a stage scene, with villains on one side and noble-minded fellows on the other. If the Archduke's murder was the result of an intrigue, as you suggest, it was a damned despicable one. Now, either the various governments are all despicable intriguers ready to stoop to any crime and duplicity to attain their ends, in which case we shall certainly have a war, if they want it; or they're more or less decent and human men like ourselves, in which case they'll do anything to avert it. We can do nothing. We're impotent. They've got the power and the information. We haven't...''
The white-gloved, immaculate Austrian waiters were silently handing and removing plates. George noticed one of them, a young man with close-cropped golden hair and a sensitive face. Probably a student from Vienna or Prague, a poor man who had chosen waiting as a means of earning his living while studying English. They both were about the same age and height. George suddenly realised that he and the waiter were potential enemies! How absurd, how utterly absurd! . . .
After dinner they sat about and smoked. George took his chair over to the open window and looked down on the lights and movement of Piccadilly. The noise of the traffic was lulled by the height to a long continuous rumble. The placards of the evening papers along the railings beside the Ritz were sensational and bellicose. The party dropped the subject of a possible great war after deciding that there wouldn't be one, there couldn't. George, who had great faith in Mr. Bobbe's political acumen, glanced through his last article, and took great comfort from the fact that Bobbe said there wasn't going to be a war. It was all a scare, a stock-market ramp. . .