When Stella and Deb came in to boil the kettle for tea, half-an-hour later, the Messenger was gone. Ferdie was staring into the fire, his fuzzy grey head bent down almost to his knees. And Hermann’s thin lips wore a cynical smile ... he had waited for these results of Deb’s upbringing, since a spoilt grandchild of eight years was first brought to Munich for his inspection.
“Deb—come here!”
Deb looked astonished. She could scarcely ever remember her father shouting at her. But to Stella the sound was familiar. The Teuton disciplinarian always begins by losing control of his voice. Ferdie, in supreme emotion, was reverting to type....
“Did you spend a night——” he choked—then started off again: “Did you spend a night with that man Kennedy at his cottage in the country?—Yes or no?”
“What’s the fuss about?” asked Deb, in Richard’s most casual manner. She thrust her hands deep into the pockets of her lilac jersey, tilted back her chin ... and wished devoutly she could run away.
“Yes or no?” roared her father.
“There was no harm in it.”
“Yes or no?”
“No....”
Sheer whimpering terror, this; not of the bellow which shook the very furniture, but of the blaze in Ferdie’s wontedly mild brown eyes.