“You were just trying to protect me,” said Sabina. “I don’t care that Gustav did have the best of it, I can’t think of anyone I’d feel safer with. I’m honored that you stood up for me.”

“Well, thank you,” said Matthew, “but he certainly did have the best of it. I’d have done better to try the diplomatic route.”

“I doubt Gustav would have been any more inclined to listen than our Führer,” commented the baron. “I fear they are cut out of very similar cloth.”

“Still, I’ve spent a lifetime watching Dad here respond with gracious aplomb in some of the most hostile and crazy circumstances.”

“I’ve had years of experience, my boy,” said his father.

“Yeah, I suppose. But if I’m going to follow in your footsteps, I’m going to have to learn to handle things better than that. At least I shouldn’t get into a scuffle unless I have an even chance of holding my own—which I sure didn’t yesterday! That guy had me for lunch!”

A silence fell while everyone took a few bites of the food before them. Thaddeus found himself hoping that the incident involving his son was not prophetic with respect to the present world crisis involving the German bully Hitler… or, if it was, that the world community would be more able to resist his threat than Matthew had Gustav’s.

“What was all that business with the rose?” Matthew asked.

Sabina reddened.

Matthew saw it, realized perhaps he’d stumbled into something touchy, then awkwardly tried to withdraw the question.

“No… it’s all right,” said Sabina. “But—don’t you have the same custom in America?”

“What custom?”

“About the giving of roses… about red roses?”

“I don’t know. People give roses to each other all the time, and I guess red is the most common color to give.”

Sabina glanced at her mother.

“In our country, Matthew,” Marion said, “the giving of a red rose signifies one and only one thing and carries with it that single, important meaning.”

“What is that?” he asked.

“Red roses are given only between lovers,” Sabina’s mother replied. “The exchange of a red rose is perhaps of equal significance with an exchange of rings. It is only husbands and wives, or those who will soon be united in matrimony, who do so. Roses of mere friendship may be of any other color—but never red.”

“So Gustav’s action was more than mere rudeness?” said Matthew’s father.