Michael laughed outright at this.

“While a fleet of Zeppelins hovers over London, and drops bombs on the War Office and the Admiralty,” he suggested.

But Aunt Barbara was not in the least diverted by this.

“And if England stands aside,” she said, “Der Tag will only dawn a little later, when Germany has settled with France and Russia.  We shall live to see Der Tag, Michael, unless we are run over by motor-buses, and pray God we shall see it soon, for the sooner the better.  Your adorable Falbes, now, Sylvia and Hermann.  What do they think of it?”

“Hermann was certainly rather—­rather upset when he read of the Sarajevo murders,” he said.  “But he pins his faith on the German Emperor, whom he alluded to as a fire-engine which would put out any conflagration.”

Aunt Barbara rose in violent incredulity.

“Pish and bosh!” she remarked.  “If he had alluded to him as an incendiary bomb, there would have been more sense in his simile.”

“Anyhow, he and Sylvia are planning a musical tour in Germany in the autumn,” said Michael.

“‘It’s a long, long way to Tipperary,’” remarked Aunt Barbara enigmatically.

“Why Tipperary?” asked Michael.

“Oh, it’s just a song I heard at a music-hall the other night.  There’s a jolly catchy tune to it, which has rung in my head ever since.  That’s the sort of music I like, something you can carry away with you.  And your music, Michael?”

“Rather in abeyance.  There are—­other things to think about.”

Aunt Barbara got up.

“Ah, tell me more about them,” she said.  “I want to get this nightmare out of my head.  Sylvia, now.  Sylvia is a good cure for the nightmare.  Is she kind as she is fair, Michael?”

Michael was silent for a moment.  Then he turned a quiet, radiant face to her.

“I can’t talk about it,” he said.  “I can’t get accustomed to the wonder of it.”

“That will do.  That’s a completely satisfactory account.  But go on.”

Michael laughed.

“How can I?” he asked.  “There’s no end and no beginning.  I can’t ‘go on’ as you order me about a thing like that.  There is Sylvia; there is me.”

“I must be content with that, then,” she said, smiling.

“We are,” said Michael.

Lady Barbara waited a moment without speaking.

“And your mother?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“She still refuses to see me,” he said.  “She still thinks it was I who made the plot to take her away and shut her up.  She is often angry with me, poor darling, but—­but you see it isn’t she who is angry:  it’s just her malady.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Lady Barbara.  “I am so glad you see it like that.”

“How else could I see it?  It was my real mother whom I began to know last Christmas, and whom I was with in town for the three months that followed.  That’s how I think of her:  I can’t think of her as anything else.”