"You may be the bravest people on earth," said Mr. Direck, "but if you haven't got arms and the other chaps have--you're just as if you were sheep." He became gloomily pensive. He roused himself to describe his experiences at some length, and the extraordinary disturbance of his mind. He related more particularly his attempts to see the sights of Cologne during the stir of mobilisation. After a time his narrative flow lost force, and there was a general feeling that he ought to be left alone with Cissie. Teddy had a letter that must be posted; Letty took the infant to crawl on the mossy stones under the pear tree. Mr. Direck leant against the window-sill and became silent for some moments after the door had closed on Letty. "As for you, Cissie," he began at last, "I'm anxious. I'm real anxious. I wish you'd let me throw the mantle of Old Glory over you." He looked at her earnestly. "Old Glory?" asked Cissie. "Well--the Stars and Stripes. I want you to be able to claim American citizenship--in certain eventualities. It wouldn't be so very difficult. All the world over, Cissie, Americans are respected.... Nobody dares touch an American citizen. We are--an inviolate people." He paused. "But how?" asked Cissie. "It would be perfectly easy--perfectly." "How?" "Just marry an American citizen," said Mr. Direck, with his face beaming with ingenuous self-approval. "Then you'd be safe, and I'd not have to worry." "Because we're in for a stiff war!" cried Cissie, and Direck perceived he had blundered. "Because we may be invaded!" she said, and Mr. Direck's sense of error deepened. "I vow--" she began. "No!" cried Mr. Direck, and held out a hand. There was a moment of crisis. "Never will I desert my country--while she is at war," said Cissie, reducing her first fierce intention, and adding as though she regretted her concession, "Anyhow." "Then it's up to me to end the war, Cissie," said Mr. Direck, trying to get her back to a less spirited attitude. But Cissie wasn't to be got back so easily. The war was already beckoning to them in the cottage, and drawing them down from the auditorium into the arena. "This is the rightest war in history," she said. "If I was an American I should be sorry to be one now and to have to stand out of it. I wish I was a man now so that I could do something for all the decency and civilisation the Germans have outraged. I can't understand how any man can be content to keep out of this, and watch Belgium being destroyed. It is like looking on at a murder. It is like watching a dog killing a kitten...." Mr. Direck's expression was that of a man who is suddenly shown strange lights upon the world. Section 16 Mr. Britling found Mr. Direck's talk very indigestible.