Geoffrey, however, understood only too well.  He was familiar with many phases of warfare of which General Faversham took little account, such as, for instance, the strain and suspense of the hours between the parading of the troops and the first crack of a rifle.  He took that story with him up the great staircase, past the portraits to his bed.  He fell asleep only in the grey of the morning, and then only to dream of a crisis in some hard-fought battle, when, through his cowardice, a necessary movement was delayed, his country worsted, and those dead men in the hall brought to irretrievable shame.  Geoffrey’s power to foresee in one flash all the perils to be encountered, the hazards to be run, had taught him the hideous possibility of cowardice.  He was now confronted with the hideous fact.  He could not afterwards clear his mind of the memory of that evening.

He grew up with it; he looked upon himself as a born coward, and all the time he knew that he was destined for the army.  He could not have avoided his destiny without an explanation, and he could not explain.  But what he could do, he did.  He hunted deliberately, hoping that familiarity with danger would overcome the vividness of his anticipations.  But those imagined hours before the beginnings of battles had their exact counterpart in the moments of waiting while the covers were drawn.  At such times he had a map of the country-side before his eyes, with every ditch and fence and pit underlined and marked dangerous; and though he rode straight when the hounds were off, he rode straight with a fluttering heart.  Thus he spent his youth.  He passed into Woolwich and out of it with high honours; he went to India with battery, and returned home on a two years’ furlough.  He had not been home more than a week when his father broke one morning into his bedroom in a great excitement—­

“Geoff,” he cried, “guess the news to-day!”

Geoffrey sat up in his bed:—­“Your manner, Sir, tells me the news.  War is declared.”

“Between France and Germany.”

Geoffrey said slowly:—­

“My mother, Sir, was of Germany.”

“So we can wish that country all success.”

“Can we do no more?” said Geoffrey.  And at breakfast-time he returned to the subject.  The Favershams held property in Germany; influence might be exerted; it was only right that those who held a substantial stake in a country should venture something for its cause.  The words came quite easily from Geoffrey’s lips; he had been schooling himself to speak them ever since it had become apparent that Germany and France were driving to the collision of war.  General Faversham laughed with content when he heard them.