At any rate, Mrs. Saumarez was told that night that the Yorkshire coast was too highly magnetized to suit a wireless station. The sailor thought an inland town like York would provide an ideal site.
“You see,” he explained politely, “when the German High Seas Fleet defeats the British Navy it can shell our coast towns all to smithereens.”
She smiled.
“You fighting men invariably talk of war with Germany as an assured thing,” she said. “Yet I, who know Germany, and have relatives there, am convinced that the notion is absurd.”
“The Emperor has been twenty years on the throne and has never drawn sword except on parade,” put in the vicar. “There may have been danger once or twice in his hot youth, but he has grown to like England, and I cannot conceive him plunging a great and thriving country into the morass of a doubtful campaign.”
“Ninety-nine per cent of Englishmen like to think that way,” said the Admiralty man. “In a multitude of counselors there is wisdom, so let’s hope they’re right.”
When the young folk got together on the terrace, Frank Beckett-Smythe asked Martin why his neck was stiff.
“I took a toss off Elsie’s swing yesterday,” was the airy answer. Not a word did he or Elsie say as to Angèle, and the Beckett-Smythes knew better than to introduce her name.
Mrs. Saumarez left for the South rather hurriedly. She paid no farewell visits. She and Angèle traveled in the car; Françoise followed with the baggage. The Misses Walker were consoled for the loss of a valued lodger by receiving a less exacting one in the person of Martin’s father.