"The truth of the matter is that hardly any one has ever yet mastered the fact that the world is round. The world is round--like an orange. The thing is told us--like any old scandal--at school. For all practical purposes we forget it. Practically we all live in a world as flat as a pancake. Where time never ends and nothing changes. Who really believes in any world outside the circle of the horizon? Here we are and visibly nothing is changing. And so we go on to--nothing will ever change. It just goes on--in space, in time. If we could realise that round world beyond, then indeed we should go circumspectly.... If the world were like a whispering gallery, what whispers might we not hear now--from India, from Africa, from Germany, warnings from the past, intimations of the future.... "We shouldn't heed them...." Section 6 And indeed at the very moment when Mr. Britling was saying these words, in Sarajevo in Bosnia, where the hour was somewhat later, men whispered together, and one held nervously to a black parcel that had been given him and nodded as they repeated his instructions, a black parcel with certain unstable chemicals and a curious arrangement of detonators therein, a black parcel destined ultimately to shatter nearly every landmark of Mr. Britling's and Lady Frensham's cosmogony.... Section 7 When Mr. Direck and Mr. Britling returned to the Dower House the guest was handed over to Mrs. Britling and Mr. Britling vanished, to reappear at supper time, for the Britlings had a supper in the evening instead of dinner. When Mr. Britling did reappear every trace of his vexation with the levities of British politics and the British ruling class had vanished altogether, and he was no longer thinking of all that might be happening in Germany or India.... While he was out of the way Mr. Direck extended his acquaintance with the Britling household. He was taken round the garden and shown the roses by Mrs. Britling, and beyond the rose garden in a little arbour they came upon Miss Corner reading a book. She looked very grave and pretty reading a book. Mr. Direck came to a pause in front of her, and Mrs. Britling stopped beside him. The young lady looked up and smiled. "The last new novel?" asked Mr. Direck pleasantly. "Campanella's 'City of the Sun.'" "My word! but isn't that stiff reading?" "You haven't read it," said Miss Corner. "It's a dry old book anyhow." "It's no good pretending you have," she said, and there Mr. Direck felt the conversation had to end. "That's a very pleasant young lady to have about," he said to Mrs. Britling as they went on towards the barn court. "She's all at loose ends," said Mrs. Britling. "And she reads like a--Whatever does read? One drinks like a fish. One eats like a wolf."