marriage. Brand's recall, I am convinced, had been engineered by his father, who was determined to take any step to prevent his son's marriage with a German girl.
Young Harding was going with him, having been given his demobilisation papers, and being desperately anxious, as I have told, to get home. It was curious that Brand should be his fellow-traveller that night, and I thought of the contrast of thier journey, one man going to his wife with eager gladness, the other man leaving his wife after a few hours of marriage.
At the end, poor Elsa clung to her husband with most passionate grief and, without any self-consciousness now, because of the depth of his emotion, Brand, with tears in his eyes, tenderly embraced her. She walked back bravely, with her brother, to her mother's house, while Brand and I raced to the station, where his orderly was waiting with his kit.
"See you again soon," said Brand, gripping my hand.
"Where?" I asked, and he answered gloomily:
"God knows."
It was not on the Rhine. There was a general exodus of all officers who could get "demobbed" on any claim or pretext, the small Army of Occupation settled down to a routine life, without adventure, and the world's interest shifted to Paris, where the fate of Europe was being settled by a company of men with the greatest chance in history. I became a wanderer in a sick world.
