“Ah, it’s an epidemic!” cried Miss Martha Dole. “Imagine Sonie being in the key position!”

I told Mrs. Hornblower that I did not know Kakosan’s address but that I should be glad to give her a message as I often saw her in Cambridge. “I’m getting up a benefit party for the Rebels in Spain, and I want her to come, partly for decoration, partly because I suspect that she’s a sympathizer. Wouldn’t you like to come too? Or don’t you believe in Franco?” I had no strong feelings for either party in the Spanish Revolution and agreed with Miss Pride who said, “When the pot calls the kettle black, I shan’t back either one.”

“No, I can’t say that I do think Franco’s right,” I said, and the Countess, a rabid Loyalist supporter, squeezed my arm and said to Miss Pride’s cousin, “Sonie and I would be driving ambulances if we could, wouldn’t we, darling?” This was not in the least true. The Countess supported “causes” solely in her drawing-room and the drawing-rooms of her friends, and I, for my part, was too ignorant of world affairs to be anything but apathetic towards them.

“What a pity,” said Mrs. Hornblower. “I have not found many recruits here. Countess, have you stolen everyone for yourself?” And turning to me, she said, “I had thought that you . . . your name, you know, such echt deutsch . . . might be of our persuasion. De gustibus non est disputandum.” She moved off murmuring half to herself, “So few people are willing to take the long view, the Weltanschauung. But the time will come.” These words, proceeding from a face so venerable and harmless, gave me such an unaccountable fright that for a moment I stood looking after her, and what occurred to me as she was swallowed up by a crowd of people in the doorway was that perhaps my father, if he had gone back to Würzburg, had become a Nazi.

Martha Dole, espying an old friend, left us and the moment she was gone, I said to the Countess, “You were telling me about Harry Morgan.”

“But he told me something extraordinary! Something too really strange! Don’t misunderstand: I like him although he’s rather racy in his language. I’m only wondering how everyone will take it.”

“Take what, my dear Countess?” I cried with impatience.

“Oh, it’s probably nothing at all. It’s only that he told me that Philip has asked him to take charge of doing over the Concord house, and it only struck me odd because of the way Mrs. McAllister feels about the place. And of course, no one knows him. D’you understand me, Sonie?”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “But what I don’t understand is why Philip asked him. He hasn’t known him for longer than a month.”

“Precisely!” said the Countess with a wink and then, perceiving that her stepdaughter was at her side, added, “It is precisely as you say: a ‘four-square’ sonata, as tedious as a wooden block.”