“Lots of Russian families have settled latterly in Germany, haven’t they?” he asked.
“Russians are still rather savage. The more bourgeois a place or thing is the more it attracts them. German watering places, musical centres and so on, they like about as well as anything. They often settle there.”
“Do you regard yourself as a Russian—or a German?”
“Oh, a Russian. I⸺”
“I’m glad of that,” said Tarr, quite forgetting where he was, and forgetting the nature of his occupation.
“Don’t you like Germans then?”
“Well, now you remind me of it, I do:—Very much, in fact,” He shook himself with self-reproach and gazed round benignantly and comfortably at his hosts. “Else I shouldn’t be here! They’re such a nice, modest, assimilative race, with an admirable sense of duty. They are born servants; excellent mercenary troops, I understand. They should always be used as such.”
“I see you know them à fond.” She laughed in the direction of the Lipmann.
He made a deprecating gesture.
“Not much. But they are an accessible and friendly people.”