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"What happens if you refuse?"
"They don't say. "
"What are you going to do?"
"Some of the delegation are returning to Berlin tonight for consultations with our government. " He sighed. "I'm afraid I have been chosen to go with them. "
"Then this is the time to make our announcement. I'll go to London tomorrow after I've picked up the photographs. "
"All right," he said. "I'll tell my mother as soon as I get to Berlin. She'll be nice about it. Then I'll tell Father. He won't. "
"I'll speak to Aunt Herm and Princess Bea, and write to Fitz in Russia. "
"So this will be the last time we meet for a while. "
"Eat up, then, and let's go to bed. "
{IV}
Gus and Rosa met in the Tuileri
es Gardens. Paris was beginning to get back to normal, Gus thought happily. The sun was shining, the trees were in leaf, and men with carnations in their buttonholes sat smoking cigars and watching the best-dressed women in the world walk by. On one side of the park, the rue de Rivoli was busy with cars, trucks, and horse-drawn carts; on the other, freight barges plied the river Seine. Perhaps the world would recover, after all.
Rosa was ravishing in a red dress of light cotton and a wide-brimmed hat. If I could paint, Gus thought when he saw her, I'd paint her like this.
He had a blue blazer and a fashionable straw boater. When she saw him, she laughed.
"What is it?" he said.
"Nothing. You look nice. "
"It's the hat, isn't it?"
She suppressed another giggle. "You're adorable. "
"It looks stupid. I can't help it. Hats do that to me. It's because I'm shaped like a ball-peen hammer. "
She kissed him lightly on the lips. "You're the most attractive man in Paris. "
The amazing thing was that she meant it. Gus thought: How did I get so lucky?
He took her arm. "Let's walk. " They strolled toward the Louvre.
She said: "Have you seen the Tatler?"
"The London magazine? No, why?"
"It seems that your intimate friend Lady Maud is married to a German. "
"Oh!" he said. "How did they find out?"
"You mean you knew about this?"
"I guessed. I saw Walter in Berlin in 1916 and he asked me to carry a letter to Maud. I figured that meant they were either engaged or married. "
"How discreet you are! You never said a word. "
"It was a dangerous secret. "
