There was no possibility of replying to Lady Gurtner’s remarks, when she was determined on making an impression, for having asked a question, she turned to other matters that lay littered about in her hopping, bird-like mind. She paused only for a second’s space to think how greatly Hermann would admire and extol her for her inimitable tact in being so convincingly English.
“All the German students do nothing but drink beer,” she said, “except when they are fighting duels. What delicious tea! And a bun—yes, please, a bun—I am sure it was baked in the kitchen that Henry the Sixth built. How good! Buttered, too, on its lovely inside. I never saw such Sybarites. And here you all live, and don’t bother with anything else that happens outside. That is so sensible. You are just English boys; I wish the recipe could be known. How jolly and comfortable we should all be!”
Her mouth was full for the moment of the delicious bun, and she could not prevent Robin asking a question:
“But do you mean we are not all going to be jolly and comfortable?” he said.
“Ah, yes, you mean about this dreadful news to-day,” she said, rapidly disposing of the delicious bun by a hurried swallow and a sip of tea. “I know my husband thinks it all very serious: it is as if that great brutal Germany was insisting on a quarrel. I have not been there for years, though I was going last week, when all the trouble began. I shall never go there again if she goes to war with that lovely France, Russia too!”
“Won’t she find herself in a pretty nasty place between them?” asked Robin.
For a moment her tact deserted her: the call of the blood silenced all other voices.
“Ah, you don’t know the might of Germany if you think that,” she said. “She is invincible: not all the armies of Europe could stand against her. Her fleet, too——”
She stopped suddenly, feeling that Hermann would not admire these last remarks quite as sincerely as her previous felicities. But she could not stand anybody else, even one of those adorable English boys, running down the Fatherland.
“After all, there is an English fleet,” said Robin.