Here he utters some unpronounceable name.
“I have never heard of it,” I say in my turn.
His suspicions increase. I have to answer every conceivable question until I flatter myself I convince him, by my extremely naïve replies, that I am not even intelligent enough to be a spy.
He dismisses the soldiers, but continues talking to me.
“If only the English had stood in with us,” he says regretfully, “we could have swept the world together.”
I am silent.
He glances at my tweed suit. “I had ordered an Irish frieze just like that,” he says in English. “I was starting for a holiday in the Dolomites when the war came. Do you know who he is?” The attaché points to the cloaked General with the scarlet facings. The suddenness of the question takes me off my guard.
“Is it the Kaiser?” I ask.
“I shall not tell you,” he answers quietly.
“Then I may consider myself free?” I say presently.