“I think the Emperor is the hardest worker in all Germany,” said Barbara. “I believe he is trying (and admirably succeeding) to make us trust his professions of friendship. He has a great eye for detail, too; it seemed to him worth while to assure you even, my dear Michael, of his regard and affection for England. He was always impressing on Tony the same thing, though to him, of course, he said that if there was any country nearer to his heart than England it was America. Stuff and nonsense, my dear!” All this, though struck in a more serious key than was usual with Aunt Barbara, was quite characteristic of her. She had the quality of mind which when occupied with one idea is occupied with it to the exclusion of all others; she worked at full power over anything she took up. But now she dismissed it altogether. “You see what a diplomatist I have become,” she said. “It is a fascinating business: one lives in an atmosphere that is charged with secret affairs, and it infects one like the influenza. You catch it somehow, and have a feverish cold of your own. And I am quite useful to him. You see, I am such a chatterbox that people think I let out things by accident, which I never do. I let out what I want to let out on purpose, and they think they are pumping me. I had a long conversation the other day with one of the German Embassy, all about Irish affairs. They are hugely interested about Irish affairs, and I just make a note of that; but they can make as many notes as they please about what I say, and no one will be any the wiser. In fact, they will be the foolisher. And now I suppose I had better take myself away.” “Don’t do anything of the kind,” said Michael. “But I must. And if when you are down at Ashbridge at Christmas you find strangers hanging about the deep-water reach, you might just let me know. It’s no use telling your father, because he will certainly think they have come to get a glimpse of him as he plays golf. But I expect you’ll be too busy thinking about that new friend of yours, and perhaps his sister. What did she tell me we had got to do? ‘To her garlands let us bring,’ was it not? You and I will both send wreaths, Michael, though not for her funeral. Now don’t be a hermit any more, but come and see me. You shall take your garland girl into dinner, if she will come, too; and her brother shall certainly sit next me. I am so glad you have become yourself at last. Go on being yourself more and more, my dear: it suits you.” CHAPTER VIII