“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.

“Then you were afraid even where no fear was, mother darling,” said he, “and if you would like to sit out in the garden I’ll take a chair out for you, and a table and candles.  Let’s all sit out; it’s a divine hour, this hour after sunset.  There are but a score of days in the whole year when the hour after sunset is warm like this.  It’s such a pity to waste one indoors.  The young people”—­and he pointed to Sylvia and Michael—­“will gaze into each other’s hearts, and Mamma’s will beat in unison with Lady Ursula’s, and I will sit and look at the sky and become profoundly sentimental, like a good German.”