"Has Mr. Fischer been telling you fairy tales?" she laughed.
"Fairy tales?" her aunt repeated severely. "I don't understand."
Fischer's steel grey eyes flashed behind his spectacles.
"I'm afraid that Miss Van Teyl's prejudices," he observed bitterly, "are very firmly fixed."
"Then she is no true American," Mrs. Hastings pronounced didactically.
"Oh, I can assure you that I am not prejudiced," Pamela declared, "only, you see, I, too, have just arrived from the other side, and I have been able to use my own eyes and judgment. If there is any prejudice in the matter, why should it not come from Mr. Fischer? He has the very good excuse of his German birth."
"Mr. Fischer is an American citizen," Mrs. Hastings reminded her niece, "and personally, I think that the American of German birth is one of the most loyal and long-suffering persons I know. I cannot say as much for the English people who are living over here. And as to fairy stories—"
Pamela intervened, turning towards Fischer with a little laugh.
"Oh, he can't even deny those! What about the great German victory in the North Sea, Mr. Fischer? Do you happen to have seen the latest telegrams?"
"Our first reports were perhaps a little too glowing," Mr. Fischer acknowledged. "That, under the circumstances, is, I think, only natural. But the facts remain that the invincible English and the untried German fleets have met, to the advantage of the German."