oor. It was
Triumphant Germany celebrating her undisputed position and
pride--celebrating her mastery of the universe.

Gard really longed at moments to be actively throbbing with it all,
circling in the throng, and holding Elsa with her blond florescence
in his arms. Then a certain contentment would possess him as he
pictured her mother forced to stay home with blighted hankerings.
What a ridiculous appearance he would have presented towing her
around here in a waltz before all these florid and grandiose figures
of state!

* * * * *

Kirtley's disposition was somewhat slow-going, sure-footed. He had a
gentle or quiet conservative tenacity that so often comes with the
inheritance of a moderate income. It at least gave him time to look
things deliberately in the face.

He had at first discounted heavily his old friend's pyrotechnic,
cynical bill of complaints against the Teutons and Teutonism. It was
diverting, salient, but therefore discouraging to credence. Such
judgments were apt to be flashes in the pan. They startled but
lacked rootage. Gard had not sufficiently taken into consideration
that the journalist was speaking at the end of seven years in
Germany instead of at the beginning. When one arrives in a country,
extreme snap-shot impressions readily flare forth in the mind.

Yet the more Kirtley saw, the more did he turn toward the same
divorced mental attitude. He realized how truly the typical Villa
Elsa, though in quite a different key, justified Anderson's
conclusions. The performance Frau Bucher had gone through verified
another variant in racial traits--a variant which Anderson had
stressed.

Namely, one must be forcible, even harsh, with a German. He does not
respond satisfactorily to kindness, leniency, liberality. Little
sunny courtesies, unselfishnesses, genial endeavors, do not
characteristically illuminate the tenebrous interior of his
consciousness. He misinterprets them as feeblenesses, as confessions
of his dominating rights and privileges. The more one grants to him,
the more one yields to him, the more advantage and aggressive
advantage he assumes he is invited to take. To go out of one's way
to be obliging, to attempt to ingratiate one's self, brings
difficulties.

But stout decision, sternness, defiant ultimatums, win out with him.
As long as Gard had tried to make himself agreeable in the affair of
the Court ball, his efforts were misunderstood and he b