"You have not to go far," returned von Herrnung. His fine florid complexion had suffered a deteriorating change. Savage anger boiled in his blood. He had thrown the iron gauntlet of German military preparedness in the faces of these cool, well-bred, smiling English, and brandished the iron thunderbolt of German intellectual supremacy—and with this result—that they took his deadly earnestness as jest. "Kreutzdonnerwetter! these English officers.... The pig-dogs! the sheep's heads! ..." He swallowed down the abusive epithets he would have liked to pitch at them, and stiffened his huge frame arrogantly as he stared in Courtley's simple face:
"Aber—you have not far to go, to visualise the type conceived by Nietzsche. I and my comrades—we are Supermen!"
"Thanks for explaining, frightfully!" said Courtley with artless gratitude, as Brayham purpled apoplectically and even the Goblin tittered behind her fan. "Shall know what to ticket you now, you know. Thanks very much!"
"You have read Nietzsche?" the sailor's victim queried.
Said Courtley, with his best air of frank simplicity:
"His works were recommended to me by my doctor, when I had a bad attack of insomnia, about a year ago. Ordered a volume of 'Thus Spake Zara Somebody.' Half a chapter did the business. No insomnia since then. Sleep like a mite in a Gorgonzola, the instant my head touches the pillow—never read another word. But heaps of friends in the Fleet'll be wanting to borrow the book presently, depend on it. For we'll all be too scared of Germany to sleep—in the year 1916."
Laughter broke forth. Lady Wathe gasped, dabbing her tearful eyes with a lace-bordered handkerchief:
"Oh, Tido! will you dead-in-earnest Germans never learn what pulling a leg means?"
"Ach ja! I should have understood!" He had stared, frowned, and reddened savagely. Now, with a palpable effort, his equanimity was regained. He turned with a smiling remark to Patrine Saxham, as Lady Beauvayse breathed in Courtley's ear:
"You perfect pet! How I love you for that!"