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then, did not then have as much weight on it as it would now.
Irony, which celebrates that element which we persist in excluding
from our vision of things, would have been too much for them
to bear: we have become coarser-fibred.
    And now these two lovers who would not have recognised
each other passing in a street, had to decide whether their dreams
of each other for all those terrible years were strong enough to
carry them through into marriage. Nothing was left of the
enchanting prim little girl, nor of the sentimental man who had,
until it crumbled away, carried a dead red rose next to his heart.
The great blue eyes were sad, and he tended to lapse into silences,
just like her younger brother, when remembering things that could
be understood only by other soldiers.
    These two married quietly: hardly the time for a big German–English wedding. In London war fever was abating, though people
still talked about the Boche and the Hun. People were polite to
Julia. For the first time she wondered if choosing Philip had not
been a mistake, yet she believed they loved each other, and both
were pretending they were serious people by nature and not
saddened beyond curing. And yet the war did recede and the worst
of the war hatreds passed. Julia, who had suffered in Germany for
her English love, now tried to become English, in an act of will.
She had spoken English well enough, but took lessons again, and
soon spoke as no English person ever did, an exquisite perfect
English, every word separate. She knew her manners were formal,
and tried to become more casual. Her clothes: they were perfect
too, but after all, she was a diplomat’s wife and had to keep up
appearances. As the English put it.
    They started married life in a little house in Mayfair, and there
she entertained, as was expected of her, with the aid of a cook and
a maid, and achieved something like the standards she remembered
from her home. Meanwhile Philip had discovered that to marry
a German woman had not been the best prescription for an
unclouded career. Discussions with his superiors revealed that
certain posts would be barred to him, in Germany, for instance,
and he might find himself edged out of the straight highway to
the top, and find himself in places like South Africa or Argentina.
He decided to avoid disappointments, and switched to
administration. He would have a fine career, but nothing of the glamour
of foreign ministries. Sometimes he met in a sister’s house the
Betty whom he could have married–and who was still unwed,
because of so many men being killed–and wondered how
different life could have been.
    When Jolyon Meredith Wilhelm Lennox was born in 1920
he had a nurse and then a nanny. He was a long thin child, with
golden curls and combative critical blue eyes, often directed at his
mother. He had soon learned from his nanny that she was a
German: he had a little tantrum and was difficult for a few days.
He was taken to visit his German family, but this was not a success:
he disliked the place, and the different manners–he was expected
to sit at mealtimes with his hands beside him on either side of his
plate when not actually eating, speak when spoken to, and to
click his heels when he made a request. He refused to go back.
Julia argued with Philip about her child being sent off at seven
to school. This is not unusual now, but then Julia was being
brave. Philip told her that everyone of their class did this, and
anyway look at him!–he had gone to boarding school at seven.
Yes, he did remember he had been a bit homesick . . . never
mind, it wore off. That argument, ‘Look at me!’, expected to
cast down opposition because of the speaker’s conviction of his
superiority or at least rightness, did not convince Julia. In Philip
there was a place forever barred to her, a reserve, a coldness,
which at first she ascribed to the war, the trenches, the soldier’s
hidden psychological scars. But