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dared to try meantime, because it may make more trouble for Papa. If I can get four of you out

safely, I know that is what Freddi would want."

"Of course he would," said Mama. "He thought about everybody in the world but himself. Oi,

my darling, my little one, my Schatz! You know, Lanny, I would give my life in a minute if I

could save him. Oh, we must save him!"

"I know, Mama; but you have to think about the others. Papa is going to have to start life

over, and will need your counsel as he did in the old days. Also, don't forget that you have

Freddi's son."

"I cannot believe any good thing, ever again! I cannot believe that any of us will ever get out of

Germany alive. I cannot believe that God is still alive."

VI

Oberleutnant Furtwaengler telephoned, reporting that the prisoner had signed the necessary

documents and that the arrangements were in process of completion. He asked what Lanny

intended to do with him, and Lanny replied that he would take the family to Belgium as soon as

he was at liberty to do so. The businesslike young officer jotted down the names of the persons

and said he would have the exit permits and visas ready on time.

It would have been natural for Lanny to say: "Freddi Robin is missing. Please find him and

put me in touch with him." But after thinking and talking it over for days and nights, he had

decided that if Freddi was still alive, he could probably survive for another week or two, until the

rest of his family had been got out of the country.

Lanny had no way to hold Goring to his bargain if he didn't choose to keep it, and as half a

loaf is better than no bread, so four-fifths of a Jewish family would be better than none of them—

unless you took the Nazi view of Jewish families!

However, it might be the part of wisdom to prepare for the future, so Lanny invited the

Oberleutnant to lunch; the officer was pleased to come, and to bring his wife, a tall sturdy girl

from the country, obviously very much flustered at being the guest of a fashionable pair who

talked freely about Paris and London and New York, and knew all the important people. The

Nazis might be ever so nationalistic, but the great world capitals still commanded prestige.

Seeking to cover up his evil past, Lanny referred to his former Pinkness, and said that one

outgrew such things as one grew older; what really concerned him was to find out how the

problem of unemployment could be solved and the products of modern machinery distributed; he

intended to come back to Germany and see if the Führer was able to carry out his promises.

A young devotee could ask no more, and the Oberleutnant warmed to his host and hostess.

Afterward Irma said: "They really do believe in their doctrine with all their hearts!" Lanny saw

that she found it much easier to credit the good things about the Hitler system than the evil.

She accepted at face value the idea current among her leisure-class friends, that Mussolini had

saved Italy from Bolshevism and that Hitler was now doing the same for Germany. "What good

would it do to upset everything," she wished to know, "and get in a set of men who are just as

bad as the Nazis or worse?"

One little hint Lanny had dropped to the officer: "I'm keeping away from the Robin family

and all their friends, because I don't want to involve myself in any way in political affairs. I am

hoping that nothing of an unhappy nature will happen to the Robins while we are waiting. If

anything of the sort should come up I will count upon Seine Exzellenz to have it corrected."

"Ja, gewiss!" replied the officer. "Seine Exzellenz would not permit harm to come to them—in

fact, I assure you that no harm is coming to any Jewish persons, unless they themselves are

making some sort of trouble."

The latter half of this statement rather tended to cancel the former half; it was a part of the

Nazi propaganda. That was what made it so difficult to deal with them; you had to pick every

sentence apart and figure out which portions they might mean and which were bait for suckers.

The Oberleutnant was cordial, and seemed to admire Lanny and his wife greatly; but would

this keep him from lying blandly, if, for example, his chief was holding Freddi Robin as a

hostage and wished to conceal the fact? Would it keep him from committing any other act of

treachery which might appear necessary to the cause of National Socialism? Lanny had to keep

reminding himself that these young men had been reared on Mein Kampf; he had to keep

reminding his wife, who had never read that book, but instead had heard Lord Wickthorpe cite

passages from Lenin, proclaiming doctrines of political cynicism which sounded embarrassingly

like Hitler's.

VII

Heinrich Jung also had earned a right to hospitality, so he and his devoted little blue-eyed

Hausfrau were invited to a dinner which was an outstanding event in her life. She had

presented the Fatherland with three little Aryans, so she didn't get out very often, she confessed.