"Yes, yes," he repeated, "I must have you do that, Sylvia. I don't care what Hermann wants or what you want. I want it.""Yes, but who's to do the playing and the singing?" asked Hermann.
"Isn't it a question, perhaps, for--"
Michael felt quite secure about the feelings of the other two, and rudely interrupted.
"No," he said. "It's a question for me. When the Fatherland hears that I am there it will no doubt ask me to play and sing instead of you two. Lord! Fancy marrying into such a distinguished family.
I burst with pride!"
It required, then, little debate, since all three were agreed, before Hermann was empowered with authority to make arrangements, and they remained simultaneously talking till Mrs. Falbe, again drifting in, announced that the bell for dinner had sounded some minutes before. She had her finger in the last chapter of "Lady Ursula's Ordeal," and laid it face downwards on the table to resume again at the earliest possible moment. This opportunity was granted her when, at the close of dinner, coffee and the evening paper came in together. This Hermann opened at the middle page.
"Hallo!" he said. "That's horrible! The Heir Apparent of the Austrian Emperor has been murdered at Serajevo. Servian plot, apparently.""Oh, what a dreadful thing," said Mrs. Falbe, opening her book.
"Poor man, what had he done?"
Hermann took a cigarette, frowning.
"It may be a match--" he began.
Mrs. Falbe diverted her attention from "Lady Ursula" for a moment.
"They are on the chimney-piece, dear," she said, thinking he spoke of material matches.
Michael felt that Hermann saw something, or conjectured something ominous in this news, for he sat with knitted brow reading, and letting the match burn down.
"Yes; it seems that Servian officers are implicated," he said.
"And there are materials enough already for a row between Austria and Servia without this.""Those tiresome Balkan States," said Mrs. Falbe, slowly immersing herself like a diving submarine in her book. "They are always quarrelling. Why doesn't Austria conquer them all and have done with it?"This simple and striking solution of the whole Balkan question was her final contribution to the topic, for at this moment she became completely submerged, and cut off, so to speak, from the outer world, in the lucent depths of Lady Ursula.
Hermann glanced through the other pages, and let the paper slide to the floor.
"What will Austria do?" he said. "Supposing she threatens Servia in some outrageous way and Russia says she won't stand it? What then?"Michael looked across to Sylvia; he was much more interested in the way she dabbled the tips of her hands in the cool water of her finger bowl than in what Hermann was saying. Her fingers had an extraordinary life of their own; just now they were like a group of maidens by a fountain. . . . But Hermann repeated the question to him personally.
"Oh, I suppose there will be a lot of telegraphing," he said, "and perhaps a board of arbitration. After all, one expected a European conflagration over the war in the Balkan States, and again over their row with Turkey. I don't believe in European conflagrations.
We are all too much afraid of each other. We walk round each other like collie dogs on the tips of their toes, gently growling, and then quietly get back to our own territories and lie down again."Hermann laughed.
"Thank God, there's that wonderful fire-engine in Germany ready to turn the hose on conflagrations.""What fire-engine?" asked Michael.
"The Emperor, of course. We should have been at war ten times over but for him."Sylvia dried her finger-tips one by one.
"Lady Barbara doesn't quite take that view of him, does she, Mike?"she asked.
Michael suddenly remembered how one night in the flat Aunt Barbara had suddenly turned the conversation from the discussion of cognate topics, on hearing that the Falbes were Germans, only to resume it again when they had gone.
"I don't fancy she does," he said. "But then, as you know, Aunt Barbara has original views on every subject."Hermann did not take the possible hint here conveyed to drop the matter.
"Well, then, what do you think about him?" he asked.
Michael laughed.
"My dear Hermann," he said, "how often have you told me that we English don't pay the smallest attention to international politics.
I am aware that I don't; I know nothing whatever about them."Hermann shook off the cloud of preoccupation that so unaccountably, to Michael's thinking, had descended on him, and walked across to the window.
"Well, long may ignorance be bliss," he said. "Lord, what a divine evening! 'Uber allen gipfeln ist Ruhe.' At least, there is peace on the only summits visible, which are house roofs. There's not a breath of wind in the trees and chimney-pots; and it's hot, it's really hot.""I was afraid there was going to be a chill at sunset," remarked Mrs. Falbe subaqueously.
