"I wish it were, Mr Belke!" said Miss Burnett with a sudden and moving change to seriousness.
"Then if it is not, why are we pretending so religiously that we have no business here but to drink tea, Miss Burnett?"
"I am not pretending; I am drinking it," she smiled.
"Yes, yes," I said, "but you know what I mean. It seems to me so un-German!"
"I'm afraid," said Miss Burnett, "that we of the secret service grow terribly cosmopolitan. Our habits are those of no country--or rather of all countries."
"I had almost forgotten," said Tiel, "that I once thought and felt like Mr Belke." And then he added this singular opinion: "It is Germany's greatest calamity--greater even than the coming in of Britain against her, or the Battle of the Marne--that those who guide her destinies have not forgotten it too."
"What do you mean?" I demanded, a little indignantly I must own.
"At every tea-party for many years Germany has talked about what interested herself--and that was chiefly war. At no tea-party has she tried to learn the thoughts and interests of the other guests. In consequence she does not yet understand the forces against her, why they act as they do, and how strong they are. But her enemies understand too well."
"You mean that she has been honest and they dishonest?"
"Yes," said Miss Burnett promptly and with a little smile, "my brother means that in order really to deceive people one has to act as we are acting now."
"But unfortunately now there is no one to deceive!"
Tiel was not a frequent laugher, but he condescended to smile.
"Remember, Belke," he said, "I warned you on the first night we met that you must not only talk but think in English. If we don't do that constantly and continually when no one is watching us, how can we count on doing it constantly and continually when some one _may_ be watching us?"
"Personally I should think it sufficient to wait till some one _was_ watching," I said.
"Germany disdains to act a part all the time!" I cried.
I confess I was nettled by his tone, but his charming "sister" disarmed me instantly.
"Mr Belke means that he wants footlights and an orchestra and an audience before he mutters 'Hush! I hear her coming!' He doesn't believe in saying 'Hush!' in the corner of every railway carriage or under his umbrella. And I really think it makes him much less alarming company!"