The outrage was evidently the fruit of a carefully laid plot. On their way to the Town Hall the Archduke and his Consort had narrowly escaped death. An individual, described as a compositor from Trebinje, a garrison town in the extreme south of Herzegovina, had thrown a bomb at their motor car. Few details of this first outrage have been received. It is stated that the Archduke warded off the bomb with his arm, and that it exploded behind the car, injuring the occupants of the second carriage.

The author of the second outrage is stated to be a native of Grahovo, in Bosnia. No information as to his race or creed is yet forthcoming. It is presumed that he belongs to the Serb or Orthodox section of the Bosnian population.

Both criminals were immediately arrested, and were with difficulty saved from being lynched.

While this tragedy was being enacted in the Bosnian capital, the aged Emperor Francis Joseph was on his way from Vienna to his summer residence at Ischl. He had an enthusiastic send-off from his subjects in Vienna and an even more enthusiastic reception on reaching Ischl.

Feliks was stunned. He was delighted that another useless aristocratic parasite had been destroyed, another blow struck against tyranny; and he felt ashamed that a schoolboy had been able to kill the heir to the Austrian throne while he, Feliks, had failed repeatedly to kill a Russian prince. But what occupied his mind most was the change in the world political picture that must surely follow. The Austrians, with the Germans backing them, would take their revenge on Serbia. The Russians would protest. Would the Russians mobilize their army? If they were confident of British support, they probably would. Russian mobilization would mean German mobilization; and once the Germans had mobilized no one could stop their generals from going to war.

Feliks painstakingly deciphered the tortured English of the other reports, on the same page, to do with the assassination. There were stories headlined OFFICIAL REPORT OF THE CRIME, AUSTRIAN EMPEROR AND THE NEWS, TRAGEDY OF A ROYAL HOUSE, and SCENE OF THE MURDER (From Our Special Correspondent). There was a good deal of nonsense about how shocked and horrified and grieved everyone was, plus repeated assertions that there was no cause for undue alarm, and that tragic though it was, the murder would make no real difference to Europe-sentiments which Feliks had already come to recognize as being characteristic of The Times, which would have described the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse as strong rulers who could do nothing but good for the stability of the international situation.

So far there was no talk of Austrian reprisals, but it would come, Feliks was sure. And then-

Then there would be war.

There was no real reason for Russia to go to war, Feliks thought angrily. The same applied to England. It was France and Germany that were belligerent: the French had been wanting since 1871 to win back their lost territories of Alsace and Lorraine, and the German generals felt that Germany would be a second-class power until she began to throw her weight about.

What might stop Russia from going to war? A quarrel with her allies. What would cause a quarrel between Russia and England? The killing of Orlov.

If the assassination in Sarajevo could start a war, another assassination in London could stop a war.

And Charlotte could find Orlov.

Wearily, Feliks contemplated afresh the dilemma that had haunted him for the last forty-eight hours. Was anything changed by the murder of the Archduke? Did that give him the right to take advantage of a young girl?

It was almost time for the bathhouse to open. A small crowd of women carrying bundles of washing gathered around the door. Feliks folded his newspaper and stood up.

He knew that he would use her. He had not resolved the dilemma-he had simply decided what to do. His whole life seemed to lead up to the murder of Orlov. There was a momentum in his progress toward that goal, and he could not be deflected, even by the knowledge that his life had been founded on a mistake.

Poor Charlotte.

The doors opened, and Feliks went into the bathhouse to wash.

Charlotte had it all planned. Lunch was at one o’clock when the Waldens had no guests. By two-thirty Mama would be in her room, lying down. Charlotte would be able to sneak out of the house in time to meet Feliks at three. She would spend an hour with him. By four-thirty she would be at home in the morning room, washed and changed and demurely ready to pour tea and receive callers with Mama.

It was not to be. At midday Mama ruined the whole plan by saying: “Oh, I forgot to tell you-we’re lunching with the Duchess of Middlesex at her house in Grosvenor Square.”

“Oh, dear,” Charlotte said. “I really don’t feel like a luncheon party.”

“Don’t be silly-you’ll have a lovely time.”

I said the wrong thing, Charlotte thought immediately. I should have said I’ve got a splitting headache and I can’t possibly go. I was too halfhearted. I could have lied if I’d known in advance but I can’t do it on the spur of the moment. She tried again. “I’m sorry, Mama. I don’t want to go.”

“You’re coming, and no nonsense,” Mama said. “I want the Duchess to get to know you-she really is most useful. And the Marquis of Chalfont will be there.”

Luncheon parties generally started at one-thirty and went on past three. I might be home by three-thirty, so I could get to the National Gallery by four, Charlotte thought; but by then he will have given up and gone away, and besides, even if he is still waiting, I would have to leave him almost immediately in order to be home for tea. She wanted to talk to him about the assassination: she was eager to hear his views. She did not want to have lunch with the old Duchess and-

“Who is the Marquis of Chalfont?”

“You know, Freddie. He’s charming, don’t you think?”

“Oh, him. Charming? I haven’t noticed.” I could write a note, address it to that place in Camden Town, and leave it on the hall table on my way out for the footman to post; but Feliks doesn’t actually live at that address, and anyway he wouldn’t get the note before three o’clock.

Mama said: “Well, notice him today. I fancy you may have bewitched him.”

“Who?”

“Freddie. Charlotte, you really must pay a little attention to a young man when he pays attention to you.”

So that was why she was so keen on this lunch party. “Oh, Mama, don’t be silly-”

“What’s silly about it?” Mama said in an exasperated voice.

“I’ve hardly spoken three sentences to him.”

“Then it’s not your conversation that has bewitched him.”

“Please!”

“All right, I won’t tease. Go and change. Put on that cream dress with the brown lace-it suits your coloring.”

Charlotte gave in, and went up to her room. I suppose I should be flattered about Freddie, she thought as she took off her dress. Why can’t I get interested in any of these young men? Maybe I’m just not ready for all that yet. At the moment there’s too much else to occupy my mind. At breakfast Papa said there would be a war, because of the shooting of the Archduke. But girls aren’t supposed to be too interested in that sort of thing. The summit of my ambition should be to get engaged before the end of my first season-that’s what Belinda is thinking about. But not all girls are like Belinda-remember the suffragettes.

She got dressed and went downstairs. She sat and made idle conversation while Mama drank a glass of sherry; then they went to Grosvenor Square.

The Duchess was an overweight woman in her sixties: she made Charlotte think of an old wooden ship rotting beneath a new coat of paint. The lunch was a real hen party. If this were a play, Charlotte thought, there would be a wild-eyed poet, a discreet Cabinet Minister, a cultured Jewish banker, a Crown Prince, and at least one remarkably beautiful woman. In fact, the only men present, apart from Freddie, were a nephew of the Duchess and a Conservative M.P. Each of the women was introduced as the wife of so-and-so. If I ever get married, Charlotte thought, I shall insist on being introduced as myself, not as somebody’s wife.