“The war?”

“Yes, the coming war. Really Francis, you don’t have to be an astrologer to know that there’s a war coming, and you and I had better get out of this charming, picturesque castle before it does, or we may find ourselves making the journey on the Bummelzug that passes behind here every few days.”

“You know about that?”

“It’s not much of a secret. I’d give a lot to have a peep at that place, but the first rule for aliens is not to be too snoopy. I hope you don’t go too near there when you are out for spins in your little car. Francis, surely you know that we are living in the grasp of the greatest tyranny in at least a thousand years, and certainly the most efficient tyranny in history. And where there’s tyranny, there’s sure to be treachery, and some of it is of a rarefied sort. You don’t know what Saraceni’s doing?”

“I’m beginning to wonder.”

“You’ll have to know soon. Really, Francis, for a man with your strong Mercury influence you are very slow to catch on. I said you weren’t stupid, but you are thick. You’d better find out what you’ve got yourself into, my boy. Maybe Max will tell you. Listen—Mercury is the spirit of intelligence, isn’t he? And also of craft, and guile, and trickery, and all that sort of thing. Something of the greatest importance is very near you. A decision. Francis, I beg you, be a crook if you must, but for the love of God, don’t be a dumb crook. You, with Saturn and Mercury so strong in your chart! You want me to tell you the dark things in your chart—there they are! And one thing more: money. You’re much too fond of money.”

“Because everybody is trying to gouge it out of me. I seem to be everybody’s banker and unpaid bottle-washer and snoop and lackey—”

“Snoop? So that’s why you’re here! Well, it relieves me that you’re not just a lost American wandering around in a fog—”

“I’m not an American, damn it! I’m a Canadian. You English never know the difference!”

“Sorry, sorry, sorry! Of course you’re a Canadian. Do you know what that is? A psychological mess. For a lot of good reasons, including some strong planetary influences, Canada is an introverted country straining like hell to behave like an extravert. Wake up! Be yourself, not a bad copy of something else!”

“Ruth, you can talk more unmitigated rubbish than anybody I have ever known!”

“Okay, my pig-headed friend. Wait and see. The astrological consultation is now over and it’s midnight and we must be fresh and pretty tomorrow to greet our betters when they come from Munich, and Rome, and wherever the ineffable Prince Maximilian is arriving from. So, give me one more cognac, and then it’s goodnight!”

“Heil Hitler!” Prince Maximilian’s greeting rang like a pistol shot.

Saraceni started, and his right arm half rose in response to the Nazi salute. But the Countess, who had sunk half-way down in a curtsy, ascended slowly, like a figure on the pantomime stage, rising through a trapdoor.

“Max, do you have to say that?”

“My dear cousin, forgive my little joke. May I?” And he kissed her affectionately on the cheek. “Saraceni, dear old chap! Dear little cousin, you’re prettier than ever. Miss Nibsmith, how d’you do? And we haven’t met, but you must be Cornish, Tancred’s right hand. How d’you do?”

It was not easy to get a word in with Prince Max. Francis shook his outstretched hand. Max did not stop talking.

“So kind of you to ask me to spend Christmas with you, cousin. It’s not celebrated as cheerfully in Bavaria as we remember, though I saw a few signs of jollification on the road. I came by way of Oberammergau, because I thought that there, if anywhere, the birth of Our Lord would be gratefully acknowledged. After all, they must sell and export several hundred thousand board-feet of creches and crucifixes and holy images every year, and even they can’t utterly forget why. In Switzerland, now, Christmas is in full, raving eruption. Paris is en fete, almost as if Christ had been a Frenchman. And in London people otherwise quite sane are wallowing in the Dickensian slush, and looting Fortnum’s of pies and puddings and crackers and all the other artifacts of their national saturnalia. And here—I see you’ve put up some evergreens—”

“Of course. And tomorrow there will be Mass, as usual.”

“And I shall be there! I shall be there, not having eaten a crumb or drunk a swallow since midnight. I shall not even clean my teeth, lest a Lutheran drop might escape down my gullet. What a lark, eh? Or should I say, ‘Wot larks’, Cornish? Should I say ‘Wot larks’?”

“I beg your pardon, sir?”

“Oh, not sir, please! Call me Max. ‘Wot larks’ because of Dickens. You must be a real Dickensian Protestant, no?”

“I was brought up a Catholic, Max.”

“You don’t look in the least like one.”

“And exactly how does a Catholic look?” said the Countess, not pleased.

“Oh, it’s a most becoming look, cousin, an other-wordly light in the eyes, never seen among Lutherans. Isn’t that so, Miss Nibsmith?”

“Oh, but our eyes shine with the light of truth, sir.”

“Good, very good! No trapping the governess, is there? Are you taking on any of that light, Amalie?”

Amalie blushed, as she always did when she was singled out for special notice, but had nothing to say. There was no need. The Prince rattled on.

“Ah, a real Bavarian Christmas, just like childhood! How long will it last, eh? I suppose so long as none of us are Jews we shall be allowed to celebrate Christmas in our traditional way, at least in privacy. You’re not a Jew, by any chance, Tancred? I’ve always wondered.”

“God forbid,” said Saraceni, crossing himself. “I have worries enough as it is.”

Amalie found her tongue. “I didn’t know Jews celebrated Christmas,” she said.

“Poor devils! I don’t think they get much chance to celebrate anything. We’ll drink to better times at dinner, won’t we?”

The Prince had arrived in a small, sporting, snorting, coughing, roaring, farting car, loaded with packages and big leather cases, and when the company assembled for dinner, these proved to contain presents for everybody, all speaking loudly of Bond Street. For the Countess a case of claret and a case of champagne. For Amalie, a photograph of Prince Max in dress uniform, in a costly frame from Asprey’s. For Miss Nibsmith a beautiful if somewhat impractical diary bound in blue leather, with a gold lock and key—for astrological notations, said Prince Max, slyly. For Saraceni and Francis leather pocket diaries for the year to come, obviously from Smythson’s. And for the servants, all sorts of edible luxuries in a hamper from Fortnum’s.

Of course there were other gifts. The Countess gave Francis a book that had been written about the Düsterstein pictures by some toilsome scholar many years before. Amalie, with much blushing, gave him six handkerchiefs which she had embroidered with his initials. Saraceni gave everybody books of poetry bound in Florence. Francis won high distinction by giving the Countess and Amalie sketches of themselves, done in his Old Master style, in which he had taken special care to emphasize the family resemblance. He had nothing for the men, or for Miss Nibsmith, but it did not seem to matter. And when the gift-giving was finished, they sat down to a dinner of greater length than usual, with venison, and roast goose, and a stuffed carp, which was nicer to look at than to eat. And when cheese had been consumed the Countess announced that in special compliment to Francis they would conclude with a traditional English dish, which the chef identified, he being an Italian-Swiss, as Suppe Inglese. It was a dashing attempt at a sherry trifle, rather too wet but kindly meant.

The meal was accompanied by what was less a conversation than a solo performance by Prince Max, filled with casual references—fairly casual but by no means inevitable—to “my cousin Carol, the King of Rumania” and one or two stories about “my ancestor, Friedrich der Grosse (though of course we are of the Swabian branch of the family)” and quite a long account of how he had studied canon law as a boy “so that the priests couldn’t cheat us—we had more than fifty parishes, you know.” And at last when toasts were to be proposed and the Countess, and Amalie, and Miss Nibsmith, and the splendours of Italian art “as represented by our dear Maestro, Tancred Saraceni”, and the King of England, had all been drunk, the Prince insisted with much merriment that they drink also to “the Pretender to the British Throne, my cousin Prince Rupert of Bavaria, whose claim is through his Stuart ancestry, as of course you know.” After this toast Francis insisted on smashing his glass (having made sure it was not too precious) in order that no lesser toast should ever be drunk from it.