Page:Wounded Souls.djvu/183

 dragged from their ploughs, ignorant of Welt-politik."

"It's all a muddle," said Brand. "I can't sort it out. I'm full of bewilderment and contradictions. Sometimes when I look at these Germans in the streets, some of them so smug, I shudder and say, 'These are the people who killed my pals,' and I'm filled with cold rage. But when they tell me all they suffered, and their loathing of the war, I pity them and say, 'They were trapped, like we were, by false ideas, and false systems, and the foul lies of politicians, and the dirtiness of old diplomacy, and the philosophy of Europe, leading up to That."

Then he told me something which interested me more at the time than his groping to find truth, because a touch of personal drama is always more striking to the mind than general aspects and ideas.

"I'm billeted at the house of Franz von Kreuzenach. You remember?—Eileen's friend."

I was astounded at that.

"What an amazing coincidence!"

"It was no coincidence," he said. "I arranged it. I had that letter to deliver and I wanted to meet the fellow. As yet, however, I have only seen his mother and sister. They are very civil."

So did Wickham Brand "ask for trouble," as soldiers say, and certainly he found it before long.