“So?”
The man had a scared look, as though he had said too much.
“Your dinner was good. It was good meat, nicht wahr? Better than in the trenches!”
He laughed in a guttural way, desiring to wipe out a bad impression.
That night Bertram set out to find his sister Dorothy, the Frau von Arenburg. By a queer coincidence in names, she lived in the Dorotheenstrasse, somewhere across the Wilhelmstrasse, at the corner of which was the British Embassy. Unfamiliar with the geography of Berlin, he lost his way, and found himself in the Leipzigerstrasse, so that, in halting German, he had to ask for the direction from a passer-by. It was a tall young man who listened very patiently to his bad German and then spoke in excellent English.
“If you will follow me, sir, I shall be very happy to guide you to the address.”
“Very good of you,” said Bertram.
“A pleasure, believe me.”
By the way he fell into step it was easy to see the man had been a soldier, and by all his bearing, an officer.
“You are a stranger in Berlin, sir?”