“Not even against France, if she gives us a decent chance.”
She spoke of Dorothy, looking across at her with admiration.
“Your lovely sister has made me a Pacifist. She’s a saint. She has converted me from all my wicked ways.”
“You were very wicked?” asked Bertram.
“In idea,” she said, smiling. “Full of naughty passion, and intolerance, and rebellion against God. Now I’m getting good. I have a new philosophy.”
“What’s that?” asked Bertram.
“Love of humanity,” she said.
“It sounds good,” said Bertram. “But I seem to have heard of it before, and it’s a little vague.”
He came to know more of her philosophy, even more of her love of humanity, because Dorothy invited her often to the house, and to the Opera, where she was placed next to Bertram, and to picnic parties in the Grünewald, where she looked her prettiest in muslin frocks “made by my own little fingers” (she told him), and to evening concerts in public gardens outside Berlin.
Anna was her name, and because of her close friendship with Dorothy—they were almost like sisters, it seemed—she insisted upon Bertram calling her that and forgetting the gnädiges Fräulein. She called him Bertram, after demurely asking his permission. He found her amusing. She had a playful sense of humour and teased him because of his English shyness. For England, in spite of being German, she had a romantic admiration, and she confessed to him that the manners of Englishmen seemed to be adorable, because of their courtesy to women.