I agreed, with misgivings, to bring Kakosan, and started to take leave of the Countess to go in search of Amy when Mrs. Hornblower approached us and halted me with an upraised and trembling hand. Gently with a dreamy, timid smile on her face—entirely out of keeping with her reputation of being a firebrand in political discussions, of being a sly one, and possibly engaged in subversive activities on the behalf of the Third Reich and Mussolini, having long since lost her interest in Sacco and Vanzetti—she said, “Lucy Pride told me where I’d find you. Someone told me you were acquainted with a young lady whose address I’m very anxious to get hold of. I mean the little Japanese girl, Miss Yoshida, or, rather, I should say, Yoshidasan without the ‘Miss,’ shouldn’t I?”

“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.