With a frown the nobleman looked up as he reached the end of the ultimatum, in which one nation, for its pride, demanded that another should hand over its honour, debased and shackled.

'It is infamous,' said Lord Durwent.

'I tell you what,' said a bland youth named Maynard, who was always in high spirits at breakfast, bored at lunch, 'frightfully bucked' by a cup of tea at four, and invariably sentimental after dinner; 'it would do these nasty little Balkans a lot of good to hold 'em all under water for about three minutes—what?'

'But this is more than a Balkan quarrel,' said Lord Durwent.

'Balkan quarrels always are,' said the youth amiably.

In a chorus of quick questions and answers, in which surmise and conjecture played ducks and drakes with fact, the party divided into two camps, the majority taking the stand that it was a local affair and would lead to nothing; the minority, led by a retired army captain called Fensome, reading a dark augury for the future. In the midst of all the chaffing Selwyn noticed, however, that the placidity of decorum had been dropped, and both men and women were leaning forward in the unaccustomed stimulus of their brains rallying to meet a new and powerful situation.

The men did not lose that note of easy banter which seemed the rule when women were present, but in the faces of the little group who contended that danger was ahead he could detect the stiffening of the jaw and the steadying of the eye which come to those who see events riding towards them with the threat of a prairie fire driven by a wind.

'But, good heavens!' said Selwyn, in answer to some one's prophecy that war would result, 'surely the big nations can stop it. Germany and you and America—we three won't let Austria cut Servia's throat in full daylight.'

The retired army captain turned a monocle on him. 'You have been in Germany, Mr. Selwyn?'

'Yes, just recently.'

'Did you ever hear them toasting Der Tag? My friend, it has arrived.—Durwent, old boy, if you will excuse me, I think I shall go to town at noon. If my old bones aren't lying, the thing which a few of us fossils have been preaching to deaf ears has come to pass, and there may be a job for a belivered old devil like me yet.'

'But,' cried Lady Durwent, whose easily roused theatrical instinct gave her the delightful sensation of presiding at a meeting of the Cabinet, 'what have we to do with Austria and Servia?'

'Hear, hear,' said the bland youth. 'Let 'em hop aboard each other if they like. I think it would be deucedly splendid for us to have another war; we're all fed up—aren't we?—with just enjoying ourselves. But I don't see how we can intrude into those blighters' little show.'

'Exactly,' said Selwyn; 'it's an isolated incident in European affairs. In what possible way can it lead to a rupture between Britain and Germany, as Captain Fensome here predicts?'

The officer referred to shrugged his shoulders. 'It's fairly simple,' he said. 'If, as I think, Germany is behind all this, Servia will appeal to Russia; and remember that the Great Bear is mother to all the Slavs. There will, of course, be jockeying for position, bluff, bravado, and all the rest of it; but France is bound to act with Russia, and with all that explosive hanging around it will be strange if some spark doesn't fall among it.'

'But what has that to do with England?'

'Nothing and everything. The greatest hope of maintaining peace lies with Great Britain. If we had the army we should have, I don't think there would be a war; but, thanks to our ostrich temperament, we are reduced to a handful of men and our action is robbed of everything but merely moral strength.'

'But that is a tremendous factor,' said Selwyn.

'Yes,' admitted the other dryly; 'but I prefer guns.'

'Then you don't think Britain powerful enough to steady the situation if it comes?'

'N-no. Not unless'—— The monocle dropped from the speaker's eye, and with annoying coolness he paused to replace it. 'Do you think America will swallow her doctrine and throw in her lot with us?'

Selwyn bit his lip to keep himself from too impetuous an answer. For the first time he felt an envy for the cool imperturbability of the Island Race.

'If you ask me,' he said, 'whether America will plunge into war at the bidding of a group of diplomats who shuffle the nations like a pack of cards, then I say no. If you older nations over here allow this thing to come to a crisis with a rattling of swords and "Hock der Kaiser!" and "Britannia Rules the Waves," count us out. But should the occasion arise when palpable injustice is being done, and the soul of Britain calls to the soul of America that Right must be maintained, then the Republic that was born—if you will permit me to say so—born out of its resentment against injustice will act instantly.'

'Supposing,' said the other, 'that Germany invades Belgium?'

'But—I understand that Germany has guaranteed Belgium's neutrality.'

The ex-officer showed no signs of having heard him, but shook his head impatiently as one does when annoyed by a fly. 'Supposing,' he repeated, 'that Germany invades Belgium.'

'In that case,' said Selwyn sternly, 'America will be the first to protest.'

'To protest?'

'And fight,' said the American, swallowing a desire to hurl a plate at the monocle.

'You will pardon me,' said Lord Durwent, 'but I do not think we can expect America to become mixed up in this thing. She has her own problems of the New World, and it is too much to hope that she is going to come over here and become embroiled in a European conflict.'

'But, dad,' said Elise Durwent, speaking for the first time, 'if, as Mr. Selwyn says, it is clear that a wrong is being committed, America will insist upon acting.'

'Oh, I don't know,' broke in the youth who was always lively at breakfast, but who was beginning to be bored; 'it's one thing to get waxy about your own corns, and quite another when they're on some other blighter's foot—what? I mean, you chaps over there got awfully hot under the collar when dear old Georgius Rex—Heaven rest his soul!—tried to jump down your throat with both spurs on and gallop your little tum-tums out. But the question is, does it hurt in the same place if old Frankie-Joseph of Austria pinks Thingmabob of Servia underneath the fifth rib—what, what?'

'Is Britain great enough for such a situation?' asked Selwyn, repressing a smile. 'Would she accept Belgium's crisis as her own?'

'Oh, that's another thing,' said the young man a little uncomfortably. 'We've signed the bally thing, and of course we'll play the game, and'——

'As Maynard says,' interrupted the former army man, 'it's a bigger thing for America than for us. Mind you, I don't say we need America to help us to make war, but we do need her help if war is to be averted; and any move of such a nature on her part demands what you author fellows would call "a high degree of altruism." How's that, Durwent, for a chap who never reads anything but the Pink Un?'

'Oh, well,' said Lady Durwent complacently, 'it's probably all a storm in a teacup, anyway. Some Austrian diplomat has been jilted for a Servian, I suppose. Isn't that the way wars always happen?' and she sighed heavily, recalling to her mind the classic features of H. Stackton Dunckley.

'That's what I say,' said the bright youth of the morning splendour. 'Why make a horse cross a bridge if it won't drink? Here goes—heads, a European war; tails, another thousand years of peace.—Ah, tough luck, Fensome, old son; it's tails.'

'Then let's begin the thousand years with some tennis,' cried Elise, whose eyes were sparkling, 'immediately after breakfast.'

'Shall us? Let's,' cried the talkative Maynard. 'So lay on, comrades—the victuals are waiting—and "damned be he that first cries, 'Hold, enough!"'

III.

With an animated burst of chatter the house-party had given itself over to a thorough enjoyment of the remainder of breakfast. Ultimatums and the alarums of war vanished into thin air, like mists dispelled by the sun. The serious face of the ex-officer and the unwonted air of distraction on Lord Durwent's countenance were the only indications that the morning was different from any other. Tongues and hearts were light, and airy bubbles of badinage were blown into space for the delectation of all who cared to look.

It was during a fashionable monologue of the Court-Circular lady that Maynard, the man of moods, who was sitting next to Selwyn, leaned over and whispered, 'Get hold of the Sketch. It's on your right. Pretend you're looking at the pictures. I've got the Mirror.'

Wondering what asinine prank was in the young man's mind, but not wanting to disturb the monologuist by untimely controversy, Selwyn reached for the Sketch, and assumed a deep interest in the very latest picture of London's very latest stage favourite who could neither sing, dance, nor act, and was tremendously popular.

'Excuse me, Lady Durwent,' said the gilded youth when a lull permitted him to speak, 'but would you pass the Daily Mail, please?'

'My dear Horace,' said Elise, 'you haven't taken to reading the Mail?'

'No, dear one. Heaven forbid! I merely write for it.'

'What!' There was an ensemble of astonishment.

'Ra-ther. I sent their contributed page a scholarly little thing from my pen entitled "Should One Kiss in the Park?" If it's in I get three guineas, and I'm going to start for Fiji to escape old Fensome's war.'

'Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, passing the journal along, 'you have a rival.'

With an air of considerable embarrassment the fair-haired contributor to newspapers opened the pages of the Daily Mail, but protesting that he was too bashful to endure the gaze of the curious, he begged permission to retire to the library, there to search in privacy for his literary child.

'I say, Selwyn,' he said, 'you come along too if you're through pecking. Nothing like having the opinion of an expert, even if he is jealous.'

With a promise to return immediately and read the effort aloud, the two men left the table and adjourned to the adjoining room. With a frown of impatience Selwyn was about to demand the reason for his inclusion in the silly affair, when the other stopped him with a gesture and closed the door.

'Quick!' he said. 'Grab that knife—here's the Sketch. Look through it for anything about Dick Durwent.'

Seeing that the other was serious, Selwyn spread the paper before him and hurriedly searched its columns.

'Great Scott!' he cried. 'Here it'——

'Sh-sh! Hurry up and cut it out. Right. I'll fix up the Mirror in the same way. Now skim through the Mail. Got it? By Jove! damn near a whole column. Here'—Maynard ran the knife down the side of the column. 'Now then, old Fensome has promised to get the thing out of the Post, and to tell Lord Durwent before he goes to town. But he mustn't hear of it this way, and those women are not to know a word about it while they're in the house.'

Selwyn nodded and looked at the ragged clippings in his hand:

'ATTEMPTED MURDER IN WEST END.' 'WELL-KNOWN NOBLEMAN ATTACKED BY PEER'S SON.' 'QUARREL OVER DEMI-MONDAINE.'

'Gad, those are juicy lines, aren't they?' said Maynard. 'Won't some of our worthy citizens lick their chops over them, and point to the depravity of the upper classes? Do you know Dick Durwent?'

'I have seen him a couple of times.'

'Awfully decent chap. Screw loose, you know, and punishes his Scotch no end, but a topping fellow underneath. I don't know who the bit of fluff is that they're fighting about, but you can wager a quid to a bob that Dick thought he was doing her a good turn.'

'I wonder who the nobleman is.'

'Can't say, I'm sure. Probably he can't either just now, seeing what Durwent did to him. Of course, it's a rotten thing to say, but if the blighter's really going to die, I hope he's one of the seventeen who stand between me and the Earldom of Forth.'

There was a knock at the door, and an inquiry regarding the newly discovered author.

'Coming,' called Maynard, reaching for the Daily Mail. 'Shove those clippings in your pocket, Selwyn, and for the love of Allah help me to select something here that I can pretend to have written. Fortunately I can play the blithering idiot without much trouble.'



CHAPTER XI.

THE RENDING OF THE VEIL.

I.

The house-party at Roselawn had hurriedly broken up, and only Selwyn remained. In view of the scandal about Dick Durwent, although it was not spoken of by any one, he felt that it would have been more delicate to leave with the other guests. But it seemed as if the Durwents dreaded to be alone. His presence gave an impersonal shield behind which they could seek shelter from each other, and they urged him so earnestly to remain that it would have been ungracious to refuse.

It was the evening of August 4th, and the family circle, reduced to four, had just finished dinner. There had been only one topic of conversation—there could be but one. Britain had given Germany until midnight (Central European time) to guarantee withdrawal from Belgium.

After dinner the family adjourned for coffee to the living-room, and, as was his custom, Lord Durwent proffered his guest a cigar.

'No, thanks,' said Selwyn. 'If you will excuse me, I think I will do without a smoke just now.—Lady Durwent, do you mind if I go to my room for half-an-hour? There are one or two matters I must attend to.'

Half-way up the stairs he changed his mind, and went out on the lawn instead. Darkness was setting in with swiftly gathering shadows, and he found the cool evening air a slight solace to a brow that was weary with conflicting thoughts.

America had not acted. There towards the west his great country lay wrapped in ocean's aloofness. The pointed doubts of the ex-army captain had been confirmed—America had stood aside. Well, why shouldn't she! It was all very well, he argued, for Britain to pose as a protector of Belgium, but she could not afford to do otherwise. It was simply European politics all over again, and the very existence of America depended on her complete isolation from the Old World.

Yet Germany had sworn to observe Belgium's neutrality, and at that very moment her guns were battering the little nation to bits. Was that just a European affair, or did it amount to a world issue?

If only Roosevelt were in power! . . . Who was this man Wilson, anyway? Could anything good come out of Princeton? . . . In spite of himself, Selwyn laughed to find how much of the Harvard tradition remained.

If America had only spoken. If she had at least recorded her protest. Supposing Germany won. . . .

Supposing——

He kicked at a twig that lay in his path, and recalled the wonderful regiments that he had seen march past the Kaiser only three months ago. Who was going to stop that mighty empire? Effeminate France? Insular, ease-loving England?

Passing the stables, he started nervously at hearing his name spoken.

'Good-evening, Mr. Selwyn. It's pleasant out o' doors, sir.'

It was Mathews, the head-groom of the Durwents.

'Yes,' said the American, pausing, 'very pleasant.'

'It looks sort of as if we was going to 'ave some ditherin's wi' Germany, Mr. Selwyn.'

'It does. I don't see how war can be averted now.'

'It's funny Mister Malcolm ain't 'ome yet, sir. Has 'is moberlizin' orders came?'

'There's a War Office telegram in the house. I suppose his instructions are in it.'

The groom shook his head and swung philosophically on his heels. He was a broad-faced man of nearly fifty, with an honest simplicity of countenance and manner engendered of long service where master and man live in a relation of mutual confidence. He sucked meditatively at a corn-cob pipe, and Selwyn, changing his mind about a cigar, produced a case from his pocket.

'Have one, Mathews?' he asked.

'No, thank 'ee, sir. I'm a man o' easy-goin' 'abits, and likes me old pipe and me old woman likewise, both being sim'lar and the same.'

With which profound thought he drew a long breath of smoke and sent it on the air, to follow his philosophy to whatever place words go to.

'If Germany and us puts on the gloves,' ruminated Mathews, 'I'll be real sorry Mas'r Dick ain't 'ere. He's a rare lad, 'e is—one o' the right breed, and no argifyin' can prove contrariwise. I always was fond o' Mas'r Dick, I was, since 'e was so high, and used to come in 'ere and ask me to learn 'im how to swear proper like a groom. Ah, a fine lad 'e was; and—criky!—'e were a lovely sight on a hoss. Mister Malcolm 'e's a fine rider hisself, but just a little stiff to my fancy, conseckens o' sittin' up on parade with them there Hussars o' hisn. But Mas'r Dick—he were part o' the hoss, he were, likewise and sim'lar.'

Selwyn nodded and smoked in silence. He was rather glad to have run into the garrulous groom. The steady stream of inelegant English helped to ease the torture of his mind.

'Has milord said anything about the hosses, Mr. Selwyn?'

'No. What do you mean?'

'Nothing much, sir, excep' that it's just what you can expeck from a gen'l'man like him. He comes in 'ere this arternoon and says to me, "Mathews," he says, "if this 'ere war comes about it'll be a long one, and make no mistake, so I estermate we'd better give the Government our hosses right away, in course keepin' old Ned for to drive." Never twigged an eyelash, he didn't. No, sir. Just up and tells it to me like I'm a-doin' to you. "Then," I says, "you won't be wanting me no longer, milord?" And he says, "Mathews, as long as there's a home for me, there's one for you," and he clapped me on my shoulder likewise as if him and me were ekals. It kind o' done me in, it did, what with the prospick o' losin' my hosses—them as I'd raised since they was runnin' around arter their mothers like young galathumpians—and what with his speakin' so fair and kindly like. Well—criky!—I could ha' swore; I felt so bad.'

'It will be a great loss for Lord Durwent to lose his stable.'

'Ah, that it will. But this arternoon, arter what I'm a-tellin' you, he just goes through with me and says, "Nell's lookin' pretty fit," or "How's Prince's bad knee?" just as if nothink had happened at all. I says to myself, "Milord, you're a thoroughbred, you are," for he makes me think o' Mister Malcolm's bull-terrier, he do. Breed? That there dog has a ancestry as would do credit to a Egyptian mummy. I've seen Mister Malcolm take a whip arter the dog had got among the chickens or took a bite out o' the game-keeper's leg, him never liking the game-keeper, conseckens o' his being bow-legged and having a contrary dispersition, and do you think that there dog would let a whimper out o' him? No, sir. He would just turn his eye on Mister Malcolm and sorter say, "All right, thrash away. I may hev my little weaknesses, but, thank Gord! I come of a distinkished fam'ly."'

They smoked in silence for a few minutes.

'No, sir,' resumed the groom, pushing his hat back in order to scratch his head, 'he never whimpered, did milord; but I saw when he got opposite Mas'r Dick's old mare Princess that he felt kind o' bad, and he didn't say much for the better part o' a minute. Mr. Selwyn, I'm a bit creaky in my jints and ain't as frisky as I were, but I'd be werry much obliged to be sent over to this 'ere war and see if I couldn't put a bullet or two in some o' them there sausage-eaters.'

'Well,' said the American moodily, 'you may get your chance.'

'Thank 'ee, sir. I hope so, sir.'

'Good-night, Mathews.'

'Good-night, sir. Thank 'ee, sir.'

Selwyn moved off into the network of shadows. Looking back once, he saw the weather-beaten groom with hands on his hips, tilting himself to and fro in benicotined enjoyment of some odd strain of philosophy. Good heavens! was that the way men went to war,—as if it were a hunt with an equal chance of being the hound or the hare? 'Sausage-eaters'—what a phrase to describe those eagle-helmeted supermen of Prussia's cavalry! And this little island of pipe-smoking, country-side philosophers and pampered, sport-loving youth—this was the country, heart of a crumbling empire, that had ordered the gray torrent of Germany to alter its course and flow back to its own confines. It was absurd. It was grotesque. It was a sporting thing to do, but would it mean the collapse of the sprawling, disjointed British Empire, linked together by a flimsy tradition of loyalty to the Crown?

Scotland would be faithful, not so much to England as to her own instincts. Even if England were the heart of things, Scotland was the brain, and more than any other part supplied the driving-power for the wheels of empire. But what of rebellious Ireland and the distant Dominions isolated by the seas? Would they seize this moment of Britain's mad impetuosity and declare for their own independence? It was the history of nations—and did not history repeat itself?

Canada, of course, would be governed in her actions by the mighty neighbouring Republic. That was inevitable when the young Dominion's life was so dominated by that of the United States. But what of the others? . . .

Thus for half-an-hour queried the man from America. He was about to turn into the house, when he glanced once more in the direction of the stables. It was too dark to distinguish anything, but there was the glow from Mathews's pipe as it faintly lit the surrounding darkness.

II.

Eleven o'clock.

'Austin.'

He had been sitting in the library talking to Lord Durwent, but the latter had just left the room to answer a phone-call from London. Elise, who had been playing the gramophone in the music-room, shut the instrument off and hurried to the American's side.

'Yes, Elise?' He tried to rise, but she pressed him back and sat on the arm of the huge chair, looking down at him with a face that was glowing with excitement. Her eyes were like jewels of fate lit from within by some magic flame, and a mutinous lock of hair fell on the side of her face, almost touching the crimson lips. There was so much magnetism in her beauty, such a heaven in the unconquered warmth of her impetuous being, that Selwyn gripped the arms of his chair to help to restrain the mad impulse to grasp her in his arms and smother those lips and the flushed, satin cheeks in a tempest of kisses.

'Yes, Elise?' he repeated, clearing his throat.

'Listen, Austin. I can't stay inside any longer. I think my blood is on fire. Will you come with me to the village?'

'At eleven o'clock?'

'Yes. The news from London will reach the village first, and I want to be there when it comes. We shall have to hurry if we are to make it in time.'

'I'm at your service, Elise.'

'Right-o. I'll let the mater know. I'll just run upstairs and put something easy on, and I'll meet you at the front of the house. You had better change too.'

A few minutes later she joined him on the lawn. They had just reached the road which led to the porter's lodge, when, without a word of warning, she grasped his hand, and, half-running, half-dancing, pulled him forward at a rapid pace. With a laugh he joined in her mood, and, running side by side, they sped along the drive, while startled rabbits leaped across their path, and melancholy owls hooted disapprobation. As if the fumes of madness had mounted even to the skies, dark flecks of cloud raced headlong across the starry heavens.

They were mad. The world was mad. He wondered whether his brain might be playing some prank, and this absurd thing of two young people laughing and running to discover whether or not a nation was at war would prove a pointless jest of unsound imagination.

'Come along,' she cried. 'You're dragging.'

Then it wasn't a dream. The sound of her voice whipped the wandering fantasies of his brain into coherency. With a shout he jumped forward, and ran as he had not done since that one great game when, as a 'scrub,' he had his chance against Yale.

'Oh-oh-oh,' she laughed, 'I'm—winded.'

He caught her up in his arms as if her weight were no more than a child's, and carried her forward a hundred paces. His strength was limitless. He felt as if his body would never again know the lassitude of fatigue.

His pulses were throbbing with double fever: that of the world and his own hot love for her. Yes, it was love. What a fool he had been ever to doubt it! His last thoughts at night were of her; the last word whispered was her name; the last picture shrouded by the approaching mists of sleep was of her face. What was morning but a sunlit moment that meant Elise? What was the day, what were the years, what was life, but one great moment to be lived for Elise—Elise?

'Put me down, Austin. There! you'll be tired.'

'Tired!'

But her feet had touched the ground, and she was away again by herself, like a tantalising sprite of the woods. The errant lock had been joined in its mutiny by a wealth of dark-hued, auburn hair, blowing free in the reckless summer breeze.

Out of the estate and along the highway, shadowed by tall bushes; past cottages hiding in snug retreat of vines and flowers; past the cross-roads, with their sign-post standing like a gibbet waiting its prize; past the inn on the outskirts of the village, with its creaking sign, and its neighing horses in the stable; past the church on the rise of the hill, with its graveyard and its ivy-covered steeple—and then the village.

Gathered in the square they could see a group of people listening to a man who was reading something aloud.

'It's the rector,' said Elise. 'Let us wait a minute. Can you hear what he is saying?'

The voice had stopped, and the crowd broke into a cheer that echoed strangely on the night-air. It had hardly died away when a quavering, high-pitched voice started 'God Save the King,' and with a sturdy indifference to pitch the rest followed, the octogenarian who had begun it sounding clear above the others as he half-whistled and half-sang the anthem through his two remaining teeth.

'That's old Hills!' cried Elise, laughing hysterically. 'He was at Sebastopol.'

The crowd was coming away.

Some were boisterous, others silent. A girl was laughing, but there was a strange look in her eyes. Bounding ahead in high appreciation of the village's nocturnal behaviour, a nondescript hound was preceding an elderly widow who was weeping quietly as with faltering step she clung to the arm of her son, who was carrying himself with a new erectness.

Behind them walked Mathews the groom, corn-cob pipe and all, shaking his head argumentatively and squaring his shoulders.

An Empire had declared war.

III.

Elise entered the post-office to telephone the news to Roselawn, and Selwyn was left alone. It was only for a few minutes, but in that brief space of time his whole being underwent a vital crisis, which was not only to change the course of his own life, but was to affect thousands who would never meet him.

The creative mind is ever elusive and unexpected in its workings. In it the masculine and feminine temperaments are fused. It leaps to conclusions—erroneous maybe, but sustained by the feminine conviction that what is instinctive must be true. Selwyn's was essentially a creative mind, prone to emotionalism and to inspiration. With men of his type logic is largely retrogressive: the conclusion is reached first; the reasons follow.

A few days before his imagination had been strangely stirred by the swiftness of thought which at twilight in England could visualise New York at noon. Simple though the scientific explanation might be, it had left him with a sense of detachment, almost as if he were on Olympus and the world spread out below for him to gaze upon.

That feeling now returned with redoubled force.

The group of villagers had parted into many human fragments. He could hear the hearty invitation of the innkeeper for all boon spirits to join him, free of expense—and regardless of the liquor laws—in a pint of bitter, to drink confusion to the enemy. But to Selwyn they seemed creatures of another planet—or, rather, that he was the visitor in a world of strange inhabitants.

All the resentfulness of an idealist whose ancestry was steeped in liberty of action rose to a fury at this unwarrantable interference of war with the lives of men—a fury maddened by his feeling of utter impotence. Was it possible, he argued, that a group of men drunk with pomp and lust of conquest could wreck the whole fabric of civilisation? What of science and education? Had they risen only to be the playthings of madmen? What kind of a world was it that allowed such things?

Was it possible, however, that this war was different from any other? Granted that Austria had willed the crushing of Servia, and that Germany was instigator of the crime—had not the rest of the world proved false to their creeds by allowing the war-hunger of the Central Powers to achieve its aim? Supposing France, Britain, America, and Italy had joined in an immediate warning to Germany and Austria that if they did not desist from their malpractices the area of their countries would be declared a plague-spot, commercial intercourse with the outside world would be brought to an end, and their citizens treated as lepers. If that had been done, men could have gone on leading the lives to which they had been called, and by sheer cumulative effect could have exerted a moral pressure on the war-lust of Germany that would have been irresistible.

Yet, like a bull that sees red, the nations had rushed madly at each other, thirsting to gore each other's vitals with their horns. Men of peaceful vocations were at that very moment slaughtering their brother-men. It was wrong—hideously wrong!

And the charge of responsibility could not be laid at the door of those idiots of Emperors. Their crime was evil enough, but the responsibility for war was with the people who allowed themselves to be led to murder by a mad, jingoistic patriotism. Supposing that when Europe was mobilising, the people of Great Britain had sent a message to the Germans: 'Brothers, justice must be done and malefactors punished. Fearing nothing but the universal conscience, we refuse to fight with you, but demand in humanity's name that you join with us in establishing the permanent supremacy of Right.' Some such message as that coming from a Power steeped in a great past would have been ashes to smother the smouldering flames of world-war.

But there was no machinery for such a thing. There was no method by which the great heart of one country could speak with that of another. Our obsolete diplomatic envoys, the errand-boys of international politics, were mere artifices, tending to cement rather than to dispel the mutual distrust of nations. What, then, stood in the way of world-understanding? What was the cause of the blindness which permitted men to be led like dumb cattle to the slaughter?

Ignorance.

That was the answer to it all. It was ignorance that kept a nation unaware of its own highest destiny; it was ignorance that fomented trouble among the peoples of the earth. Suffering, sickness, crime, tyranny, war, were all growths whose roots were buried in ignorance and sucked its vile nourishment.

An impetuous wave of loyalty towards his own country swept over Austin Selwyn at the thought. Other peoples had declared war on each other: America by her silence had declared war on Ignorance. He felt a sudden shame for his previous doubts. He saw clearly that his great continent-country was a rock to which the other baffled, despairing nations might cling when disaster overtook them.

And as he was joined by Elise Durwent, the American swore an eternal oath of vengeance against Ignorance.

IV.

With her arm in his, their subdued voices trembling with the repression of emotion, they retraced their steps. Back past the church with its white gravestones so curiously peaceful in the midst of it all; past the inn, jovial with light and the clamour of village oracles; past the forge, with its lifeless fires a presage of things to come; past the cross-roads, where the sign-post, silhouetted against the sky, seemed no longer a gibbet, but a crucifix; past cottages stirring with unaccustomed life, unconscious of the unbidden guest that was soon to knock with ghostly fingers at almost every door.

Along the quiet English lane they walked, but though the closeness of the girl beside him was ministering to the senses, his mind remained so clutched in the grip of thought that his head throbbed with pain with each step of his foot jarring upon the road.

They had reached the entrance to the estate and were nearing the house, when his reverie was broken by the sound of a quivering breath and a trembling of the hand on his arm. Like a conflagration that is already out of control, his brain flared into further revolt with the stimulus of a new resentment—he had not thought of woman's part in the thing.

'Elise,' he cried, 'this is monstrous. It is only the vile selfishness of men that makes it possible. They are not giving a thought to the women, yet you are the real sufferers. Now I know what you meant when you said that women don't have their place in the world. If they did, this never could have happened; for their hearts would never permit the men that are born of women to slaughter each other like bestial savages. Now is the time for you to speak. This is the hour for your rebellion. Let the whole world of women rise in a body and denounce this inhuman, insufferable wrong. If your rebellion is ever to come, let it come now.'

The hand on his arm was wrenched free, and Elise stood facing him with fury in her eyes.

'Are you mad, Mr. Selwyn? Or is this your idea of a joke?'

He stared at her, dumbfounded. Her eyes were glowing, and her lips were parched with the fever of the breath passing through them.

'A joke?' he said. 'Great heavens! Do you think I would jest on such a subject?'

'But—— You mean that we women should organise, rise up, to hinder our men from going to war?'

'Doesn't your heart tell you how infamous war is?'

'What does that matter?'

'But, Elise,' he pleaded desperately, 'some one must be great enough to rise to the new citizenship of the world even if martyrdom be the condition of enrolment. It is far, far harder than snatching a musket and sweeping on with the mob, but it is for people like you and me to have the courage to try to stem this flood of ignorance, to stop this butchery of women's hearts.'

'Women's hearts!' She laughed hysterically. 'And you believe that you understand women! Do you think war appals us? Do you think because we may shed tears that it is from self-pity? Rubbish! There are thousands of us to-night who could almost shout for joy.'

'Elise!'

'I mean it. Don't you see that to-night our whole life has been changed? Men are going to die—horribly, cruelly—but they're going to play the parts of men. Don't you understand what that means to us? We're part of it all. It was the women who gave them birth. It was the women who reared them, then lost them in ordinary life—and now it's all justified. They can't go to war without us. We're partners at last. Do you think women are afraid of war? Why, the glory of it is in our very blood.'

'But,' cried Selwyn, 'you can't think what you are saying.'

'I don't want to. All I know is that I could sing and dance and go mad for the wonder of it all.'

He took a step forward and grasped both her wrists in his hands.

'Listen to me,' he said, his jaw stiffening as he spoke; 'some of us have got to keep our sanity in this crisis. You know better than I, for you have described it to me, that this country has been darkened with ignorance just as Germany and the rest have been. This is the climax of it all—and you're going to help it on, instead of having the courage to take your stand. Elise, to-night I pledged my whole life to a crusade against the darkness that men are forced to endure. It is going to be a long fight, and perhaps a hopeless one, although some day, somehow, the cause must win. And I need your inspiration. Oh, my dear, my dear, you must know how much I love you. Every minute that you're away I'm hungry for you. When we were together that evening by the stream I longed so to take you in my arms that my heart ached with the repression I forced on myself. I have known that there were a thousand difficulties in the way, and I was not going to speak, but the other night when you met your brother by the oak'——

'Oh! you were spying.'

'It was an accident. I said nothing to you about it, but I thought that perhaps you needed me a little, that it might be my privilege to share your sorrow. And to-night, dear, I know that together we could work and live, and be a tremendous power for good.'

Her face, which had gone strangely pale, was darkened by a return of the crimson flush.

'Do you think I'd marry you,' she exclaimed scornfully—'a man who counsels treason?'

'I counsel loyalty to the higher citizenship.'

'H'mm!' Her shoulders contracted, and forcing her wrists free of his hands, she looked haughtily into his burning eyes. 'You had better go back to America and tell them there of this ignorant little island whose men are so crude and stupid that when the King calls they go to war.'

'Elise'——

'I would rather marry the poorest groom in our stables than you. He would at least be a man.'

'I have not deserved this, Elise. God knows I am no more a coward than other men, but I feel that I have seen a great truth which demands my loyalty.'

'It is easier to be loyal to a truth than to a country.'

'You know you are wrong when you say that. Come—we are both unnerved to-night. Perhaps I was injudicious to speak at a time when I should have known that you would be overwrought, but I could not keep back the love which you must have read'——

'Please, Mr. Selwyn, you must never mention that again. I don't want to marry you. I don't want to marry any one. I always said that a women's rebellion would come, and I feel in my blood that it has started to-night. I don't know how, or when, or where, but I am going to join it and'——

'Then you agree with me?' he cried eagerly. 'You feel that the women of this country should rise, and try to prevent this catastrophe?'

'You fool,' she said, half in pity, but with a sneer; 'you poor blind American! Yes, there's going to be a revolution against conventions, Society, customs, morality, for all I know. They're all going overboard. We've hoisted the black flag to-night, but with one, and only one, object—to help Britain and the men of Britain to fight!'

* * * * * *

And the British Fleet, at the King's command, was steaming out into the night.



CHAPTER XII.

THE HONOURABLE MALCOLM DURWENT STARTS ON A JOURNEY.

I.

An early morning mist hung over the fields of Roselawn. From his nest in the branches of a tree, a bird chirruped dubiously, as though to assure himself even against his better judgment that the rain was only a threat. The woods which bordered the meadows were blurred into a foreboding, formless black, like a fringe of mourning, and the distant hills stood sentinels at the sepulchre of nature.

Flowers, rearing their lovely necks for the first caress of the sun, drooped disconsolately, their petals like the lips of a maid who has waited in vain for the coming of her lover. Cattle in the fields moved restlessly from one spot to another, finding the grass sour and unpalatable. Through the damp-charged air the melancholy plaint of a single cow sounded like the warning of rocks on a foggy coast.

In the air which was unstirred by a breath of wind the very buildings of Roselawn seemed strangely motionless, with their roofs glistening in their covering of moisture. And through an archway of trees the distant spire of the church on the hill rose above the mist as a symbol held aloft by some smoke-shrouded martyr of the past.

A hound with apologetic tail came stealthily from the house and made for the cover of the stables. A horse rattled its headstall and pawed the flooring with a restless hoof.

With a feeling of chill in the air, Selwyn rose at seven, and dressing himself quickly, left the house for a walk before breakfast. His body was fatigued from the long vigil of the mind which had kept at bay all but a short hour of sleep, but he felt the necessity of exercise, as though in the striding of limbs his torturing thoughts might lessen their thumbscrew grip.

His feet grew heavy in the thick dew of the grass, as he plunged across the fields to a path which led through the woods, where squirrels, coquetting with the intruder, dared him to follow to the summit of the oaks.

Heedless of the morning's melancholy, yet unconsciously soothed by its calm solace, he went briskly forward, and his blood, sluggish from inaction, leaped through his veins and coloured the shadowed pallor of his face with a glow of warmth.

He had lost her.

That was the dominant note of his thoughts. What a jest the Fates had prepared for him that the very moment when the incoherencies of his life were crystallised by a great flash of truth—the very moment when he had felt the overwhelming impulse to consecrate his life in a crusade against Ignorance—that same instant should witness the snapping of the silk threads of his love!

How scornful she had been—as if he were something unclean, too low a thing for her to touch! This girl, whom he had pitied for her loneliness—this woman who had ridiculed the life of England and declared that it was stifling her—had said that the glory of war was in her blood. She had called him a fool because he dared to say that carnage was wrong. He had thought her an advanced thinker; she was a reactionary of the most pronounced type.

A feeling of fury whipped his pulses. Confound her and her unbridled tongue! What a fool he had been to woo her! One might as well try to coax a wild horse into submission. She would have to be conquered; she should be brought into subjugation by the stronger will of a man, for only through surrender would she achieve her own happiness. At present she resented equally the conquering of herself physically and mentally. For her own sake she must be taught the perversion of her outlook on life.

And Austin Selwyn, the idealist, little thought that he was applying to Elise Durwent the same philosophy as Prussia was applying to Europe.

But of one thing he was certain—much as he loved her (and at the thought his heart grew heavy with longing), his words on war had not been the idle declaimings of a sophist. There was a higher citizenship; the world was wrong to allow this war; and ignorance was the foe of mankind.

He would not withdraw from that platform. Duty was not something from which a man could step lightly aside. All his writings, all his thoughts, all his half-worked-out philosophies had been but training for this great moment. And now that it had come he would not prove renegade.

He would write with the language of inspiration. The agony of Man would be his spur, so that neither fatigue nor indifference could impede his labours. With the tears of the world he would pen such works that people everywhere would see the beacon-light of truth, and by it steer their troubled course.

Five miles he covered in little more than an hour, and with the returning sense of strength his purpose grew in firmness.

The call of the Universal Mind had penetrated through the labyrinth of life as the sound of the hunting-horn through leafy woods. There must be millions, he knew, who were of that great unison, kept from ensemble by the absence of co-ordination, by the lack of self-expression. It might not be for him to do more than help to light the torch, but, once lit, it would burst into flame, and the man to carry it would then come forward, as he had always done since ages immemorial when a world-crisis called for a world-man.

A sudden weakness crept into his blood. He was nearing home, and in a few minutes would see her again. If only he could have left the previous night on some pretext—but now he would have to wait until the afternoon at least. How strange it was to think of losing her! How wedded his subconscious thoughts had been to living out the future with her as his revelation of Heaven's poetry! Would he have the courage to maintain his purpose, or, at the sight of her, would he throw himself at her feet, and, admitting failure, plead for mercy to the vanquished?

No. A thousand times no. Anything but that.

Reaching the clearing in the woods, he paused as the ivy-covered towers of Roselawn were presented to his gaze. With a characteristic working of his shoulders he drew himself to his full height, and his jaws and lips were set in implacable determination.

The mist still clung to the earth, but over the north-east tower of Roselawn he could see the sun, monstrous and red, looming with its sullen threat of heat.

II.

It was nearing the end of a breakfast that had been trying for every one. Lord Durwent's usual kindly affability was overcast by a fresh worry—the non-appearance of his son Malcolm. Four telegrams had been despatched to Scotland, but no answer had come. Elise had been gay and talkative with a forced vivacity; and Lady Durwent had been bordering on hysteria. Not that the dear lady was of sufficient depth to be profoundly moved by the world's tragedy, but her unsatisfied sense of the dramatic gave her a new thrill every time she said, 'WE ARE AT WAR—THINK OF IT!' as if she were afraid that without her reminder they might forget the fact.

Selwyn sat in almost complete silence, merely acknowledging Lady Durwent's proclamations of a state of war by appropriate acquiescence, but his eyes remained fixed on the table. He could not trust them to look at Elise for fear they should prove traitor and sue for an ignoble peace. As for her, she met the situation with a smile, using woman's instinct of protection to assume a cloak behind which her real feelings were concealed.

They had just risen from the table, when the sound of a motor-car was heard in the courtyard, and Elise hurried to the window.

'It's Malcolm, dad,' she said.

More in hysteria than ever, Lady Durwent hurried from the room, followed more slowly by her husband and her daughter, and greeting the Honourable Malcolm at the door, smothered him in a melodramatic embrace.

'My dear, brave Malcolm,' she cried.

With as good grace as possible the young man submitted to the maternal endearments, disengaging her arms as soon as he decently could.

'Where's the governor?' he asked. 'Ah, there you are.—Hello, Elise!—I'm frightfully sorry, pater,' he went on, shaking hands with Lord Durwent and patting his sister on the shoulder, 'about those telegrams of yours, but we were on M'Gregor's yacht miles from nowhere, and didn't even know the dear old war was on until a fishing-johnny told us. Are my orders here?'

'Yes,' answered Lord Durwent; 'there are two telegrams for you. One came last night, and one this morning. I will just go into the library and fetch them.'

'But, Malcolm,' said Lady Durwent, 'let me introduce our guest, Mr. Selwyn of New York.

The young Englishman smiled with rather an attractive air of embarrassment. 'I'm frightfully sorry,' he said amiably, proffering his hand, 'I didn't see you there. Have you had any kind of a time? It's rather a bore being inland in the summer, don't you think?'

'I have enjoyed myself very much,' said the American, 'in spite of the tragic end to my visit.'

'Eh,' said the Honourable Malcolm, startled by the seriousness of the other's voice, 'what's that? Ah yes—you mean the war. Excuse me if I look at these, won't you?—Thanks, pater.'

'WE ARE AT WAR——THINK OF IT!' cried Lady Durwent in a gust of emotion, assuming the duties of a Greek chorus while her son examined the telegrams brought by her husband.

'Well, well!' said the cavalry lieutenant, reading the first message, which was signed by the adjutant of his regiment; 'dear old Agitato. How he does love sending out those sweet little things: "Leave cancelled; return at once"! Ah, my word! "Secret and Confidential"—good old War Office. What a rag they'll have now running their pet little regiments all over the world! Humph! By Jove! we're to move to-morrow. Good work! Let me see, pater. What train can I catch to town? I must throw a few things together'—he looked at his watch—'but I'll be in heaps of time for the 11.50. The Agitato always has a late lunch and never drinks less than three glasses of port, so I'll throw myself on his full stomach and squeal for mercy for being late. I say, pater, do come up while I toss a few unnecessaries into my case.—That's right, Brown; put my bag in my room. And, Brown, you might put some vaseline on those golf-clubs. I sha'n't be wanting them for some little time.—Come along, pater.—Excuse me, Mr.—Mr.'——

'SELWYN,' cried Lady Durwent.

'Mr. Selwyn, I'll see you later, eh?'

'The old nobleman ascended the stairs with his son, and the agreeable chatter of the younger man, with its references to 'topping sport' and 'absolutely ripping weather,' came to an end as they disappeared along the western wing of the house. Lady Durwent, wiping her eyes, went into the library, and Selwyn, who was not particularly enamoured of solitude and its attending tyranny of thoughts, followed her.

Elise, who had stood in mute contemplation of her brother, neither addressing a remark nor being addressed, hesitated momentarily, then went into the drawing-room by herself and closed the door.

'Oh, Mr. Selwyn,' said Lady Durwent, breathing heavily, 'you have no idea what a mother's feelings are at a time like this.'

'I can only sympathise most sincerely,' said the American gravely.

'He has been such a good boy,' she said vaguely, 'and so devoted to his mother.'

'I can see that, Lady Durwent.'

'I shall never forget,' she went on, her own words creating a deliciously dramatic trembling in her bosom, 'how he wept when his father insisted upon his leaving home for school. It was all I could do to console the child; and when he came home for the holidays he was just my shadow.'

At that satisfactory thought (though Selwyn was a little puzzled at the picture of the diminutive Malcolm serving as a shadow for Lady Durwent's bulk) she expanded into a smile, but immediately corrected the error with a burst of unrestrained grief.

'THINK OF IT, MR. SELWYN,' she cried, reversing the formula—'WE ARE AT WAR!'

He murmured assent. 'I am afraid, Lady Durwent,' he said, 'that I must return to London this afternoon.'

'Oh, Mr. Selwyn!'

'Yes, I must. I have a great deal of work before me, and only the cordiality of your welcome and the pleasure I have felt in being here would have allowed me to stay so long. You have been wonderfully kind, and perhaps the fact that I was here when war broke out will lend a special significance to our friendship for the future.'

'Oh, I shall never forget you,' murmured his hostess, whose emotions were so near the surface that almost any remark was sufficient to tap them. 'You have been the truest of friends, and Elise is so fond of you.'

'I am very fond of Elise,' blurted Selwyn, feeling his cheeks grow red. 'Her companionship and inspiration were something'——

'Ye-es.' An instinct of caution plugged the emotional channel. Lady Durwent saw that she had been indiscreet. It was not in her plan of things that her daughter should become enamoured of a commoner. Selwyn was all very well for company, and no doubt his books were very good, but Elise Durwent would have to marry in her own station of life.

'You feel that you must go this afternoon?' said the Ironmonger's daughter dismally, but with an inflection that made it more a reminder than a question.

'Yes, Lady Durwent,' he answered, with a cynical smile creeping into his lips, which seemed thin and almost cruel. 'I shall catch the 3.50.'

'Then you must come again and see us sometime, Mr. Selwyn,' she said, with that vagueness of date used by polite persons when they don't mean a thing. Lady Durwent rose with great dignity. 'Will you excuse me, Mr. Selwyn? I always meet my housekeeper at ten to discuss domestic matters. Elise is somewhere around. Is it too damp for tennis?'

She paused at the door. She had to. It is one of the traditions of the stage that a player must stop at the exit and utter one compelling, terrific sentence.

'WE ARE AT WAR,' she cried—'TH'——

'Think of it!' he said maliciously, bowing and closing the door after her.

III.

Going to his room, Selwyn packed his own bags, dispensing with the services of the valet, and with more than one sigh of regret glanced about at the luxury which he was soon to quit. The great bed with its snowy billows of comfort; the reading-lamp on the little table with the motley collection of books borrowed from the library with the very best intentions—books which had hardly been opened before sleep would obliterate everything from his sight; that merry picture of the two medieval enthusiasts playing chess, and those jolly Dickensian paintings of huntsmen at luncheon with grinning waiters and ubiquitous dogs. What a charm they all had! What a merry little spot England had been in those good old days!

A ray of sunshine stole through the curtains as if it were not quite sure of its welcome, and shyly rested against the farthest wall of the room. With an exclamation of pleasure Selwyn threw open the window and looked out upon the lawns.

The sun had won its battle, and the countryside was cleared of the invading mist, which was ingloriously retreating to its own territory behind the distant hills. There was a sparkle in the air, and the rich colourings of the flowers vied with each other in Beauty's quarrel. The birds flew from tree to tree, singing their paean of the sun's victory, and a light summer breeze was scattering perfume over the earth.

As a sick man emerging from a fever, Selwyn let the refreshing vigour of the morning lave his temples with its potency. Looking towards the stables, he saw Mathews, the groom, come out of his domain to cast an approving glance on Nature's performance. Selwyn decided that he would go and say good-bye to the fellow. There was something both sturdy and picturesque about him, and the American presumed that even the head-groom of the Durwents would not be averse to a ten-shilling gratuity. He therefore left his room, and reaching the lawn, strolled over to the stables.

'Good-morning, Mr. Selwyn,' said the groom cheerily, touching his forehead in a semi-nautical greeting.

'Good-day, Mathews. How are all your family this morning?'

'Meaning the hosses, sir, or opposite-like, my old mare and her colt? Likewise and sim'lar, and no disrespeck meant, meaning my old woman and little Wellington.'

'Well,' Selwyn smiled at the worthy man's ramifications, 'I did mean the horses, but I am even more anxious to know how Mrs. Mathews is.'

'She's a-bloomin', Mr. Selwyn, she is. When I sees 'er t' other night dancin' at the village, I says to myself, "Criky! If she hain't got a action like a young filly!" Real proud I was of 'er, and 'er being no two-year-old neither, but opposite-wise free of the rheumatiz, as is getting into my withers like.'

'And how is—did you say his name was Wellington?'

'That's 'is 'andle, Mr. Selwyn, conseckens o' 'is being born with the largest nose I ever sees on a hoffspring o' his age. He's only four year and a little better, but—criky!—if 'e ain't the knowingest little colt as ever I raised! When my old woman gives 'im 'is bath 'e goes "Hiss-ss, hiss-ss," just like a proper groom rubbin' down a hoss. But 'e's a hunfeeling wretch, 'e is, for when I goes 'ome arter feedin'-time o' nights, and thinks I'll just smoke a quiet pipe, 'e ups and says, "Lincoln Steeplechase, guv'nor, and I'm a-riding you." And there he has everything around the room—'is little table and chairs and toy pianner, and I've got to jump over 'em on my 'ands and knees with that there wicious scoundrel a-sitting on my neck and yelling, "Come on, you d—d old slow-coach! Wot did I give you them oats for?" Now I puts it to you, Mr. Selwyn, if a himp as makes 'is fayther jump over a toy pianner is the kind o' child as is like to be a comfort to a feller in 'is old age.'

With which harrowing query the groom slapped his pipe on his heel and blew violently through it to try to disguise his gratification at the paternal reminiscence.

'I don't think I've seen all the horses,' said Selwyn. 'Can you spare a few minutes to show them to me?'

'Wi' all the pleasure in life, sir. Come in, sir. I know it ain't becomin' o' me for to boast,' said the groom as they entered the building, 'but if there's a better stable o' hosses than them there, then my name ain't Mathews, nor is my Christian names William John neither. There ain't many in England as knows a hoss quicker 'an me, Mr. Selwyn, though I says it that shouldn't ought to, but I knows a hoss just as soon as I sets eyes on 'im. Milord, 'e's just a small bit better, though likewise and sim'lar we usually thinks exac'ly the same. Only once we disergreed on a hoss. I says it were wicious, and 'e said as 'ow it weren't. So we bought it.'

'And who was right?'

'Well, sir, I sort of estermate as 'ow 'e was, for just arter we got 'im Mas'r Dick, who ain't afraid o' any beast as walks on four legs, took 'im out for a airing. Well, sir, that hoss—powerful brute 'e were, with a eye like Sin—goes along like as if 'e 'adn't a evil thought in 'is 'ead; but all on a sudden 'e comes to a ditch, and sort o' rolls Mas'r Dick into it, and bungs 'is 'ead against a stone.'

'Then he was vicious, after all?'

'No, sir—that's the extr'ord'nary part of it. He comes right back to the stables to me and pulls up short. I goes up and looks into that there sinful eye. "You hulk o' misery," I says; "you willainous son of a abandoned sire!" You know, sir, I always likes to make a hoss feel real bad by telling him what's what, for they got intelligence. Mr. Selwyn, I should say, by Criky! a 'uman being ain't in the same stall as a hoss for intelligence.'

'I think you may be right,' said Selwyn decisively.

'May be? There ain't no doubt about it nowise.'

'And what happened to your horse?'

'Ah yes, sir. Well, sir, I gets on 'im, and pullin' 'is face around by 'is ear, I give 'im another look in 'is sinful eye. "Where's Mas'r Dick?" I says. And—criky!—off 'e goes, lickerty-split, like as if we was entered for the Derby, and, sure enough, 'e stops right at the ditch where Mas'r Dick was a-lying all peaceful and muddy like a stiff un. Well, sir, I gets off and lifts 'im up, and then mounts be'ind 'im, and that there hoss 'e never moved until I tells 'im, and then 'e goes home so smooth-like that a old lady could 'ave rid 'im and done 'er knitting sim'lar. And arter that 'e were as gentle as a lamb, 'e were—and there 'e is right afore your eyes, Mr. Selwyn. He's a old hoss now, and ain't much to look on, but every morning when I comes in 'e takes a look with that there bad eye o' hisn and says, just like I says to 'im that day, "Where's Mas'r Dick?" I sometimes feels so sorry for the old feller that I swears something horrible just to cheer 'im up.'

With considerable interest, though with a certain doubt as to the strict authenticity of the narrative, the American looked at the horse, which, after a melancholy survey of the visitors, vented its grief in an attempt to bite a large-sized slice from the neck of a neighbour.

'Nah, then, you —— —— ——,' remarked Mathews unfeelingly, catching the old beast a resounding thump on the rump with a stick he carried. 'That'll learn you, you old hulk o' misery.'

'There's a beautiful mare, said the American, pausing at the stall of a superb charger whose graceful limbs and shapely neck spoke of speed and spirit.

'Ah! Now that there is a beauty and no mistake. She's got the spirit of a young pup, but is as amiable and sweet-tempered as a angel. She's Mister Malcolm's hunter, she is, and 'is favourite in the whole stables. He never rides anything but 'er to hounds; leastways, 'e never did but once, and then Nell—that's 'er name—Nell was took so sick with frettin' that she kicked a groom as 'ad come to feed 'er clean across the floor agin' that there far wall. Never I see a feller so put out as that there groom—never. Well, sir, she wouldn't let no one come nigh 'er, and just as we was thinkin' as 'ow we'd 'ave to forcible-feed 'er, in comes Mister Malcolm. She 'ears 'im, but don't make no sign, and just as 'e comes up close she lets fling 'er 'eels at 'is 'ead. But 'e was watchin' for it, and just says "Nellie" kind o' sorrowful and reproachful, sim'lar to the prodigal son returnin' to 'is aged fayther. Well, sir, the mare she just gives in at the knees and rubbed 'er nose agin' 'im, and says just as plain as Scripter that she was real sorry, and 'oped 'e 'd forget it as one gen'l'man to a lady.'

With sundry anecdotes of a like nature, Mathews guided the visitor past the long line of stalls, whose inhabitants kept their stately heads turned to gratify the insatiable curiosity of the equine. To the weary mind of the American there was an agreeable balm in the groom's fund of anecdote, and even in the odoriferousness of the stable itself.

Reaching the end of that line, Mathews proposed that before they went any farther they should go to an adjoining shed and inspect a litter of little hounds that were blinking in amazement at their second day's view of the world. From a near-by kennel there was the discordant yelping of a dozen hounds, and between the two places a kitten was performing its toilet with arrogant indifference to the canine threat.

They were just about to retrace their steps, when Selwyn felt Mathews's hand on his arm.

'Sh-sh!' the groom whispered. 'There's Mister Malcolm a-come to say good-bye to Nellie. I knew 'e would, sir. She'd ha' fretted 'er heart out if 'e hadn't.'

IV.

Selwyn looked down the stable, and in the dull light he saw the Hussar officer standing in the stall by the mare, crooning some endearing words, while the beast, in her delight, rubbed her face against his clothes and whinnied her plea to be taken for a gallop over the fields.

Not wanting to disturb him, or give the impression that he had been watching, Selwyn softly withdrew by a door near the dogs, and after giving Mathews a half-sovereign, made a circuit of the lawns and approached the house as if he were coming from the woods. As he did so young Durwent emerged from the stables, followed by a collie-dog that jumped and frolicked about him as he walked. Noticing the American, Malcolm crossed over to where he stood, proffering a cigarette.

'Have a gasper, Selwyn?' he asked.

'Thanks very much. I suppose it will be some time before the British Army will get into action?'

'I don't know, I'm sure,' answered Durwent, holding a match for the other, 'but three weeks at the outside ought to see us over there and ready.'

'The Germans have a tremendous start.'

'Yes, haven't they? Damned plucky of Belgium to try to hold them up, isn't it? Though, of course, you can't expect the Belgian johnnies to keep them back more than a few days.'

'You think, then, that she will be conquered?'

'Ra-ther. That's a cert. But I don't think it will be for long.'

'You mean that the British will drive the Germans back?'

'Not all at once, but sooner or later. Of course, I'm an awful muff on strategy—always was—but the general idea seems to be that we go over now and stop the bounders, and then our dear old citizens gird up their loins, train themselves as soldiers, and chase the Germans back to Berlin.'

'But—isn't it an open secret that your regular army is very small? Can you seriously expect to stop that huge force once it sweeps through Belgium?'

The Englishman picked up a stone and sent it hurtling across the lawn for the collie to chase.

'Ever play "Rugger"?' he asked.

'Rugby? Yes.'

'Then you've often seen a little chap bring a big one an awful cropper.'

'That is true, but the cases are hardly parallel.'

'Perhaps not,' said the other, rather relieved at not having to maintain the analogy any further; 'but, then, the beauty of being a junior officer is that one doesn't have to worry. I wouldn't be in old man French's shoes for a million quid, but for us subaltern johnnies it looks as if we'll have some great sport.'

As the two young men, almost of an age, stood on the rich carpet of the lawn with their figures outlined against the open background of the fields, they presented a strange contrast. The Englishman was dressed in a rough, brown tweed, and though there was a looseness about his shoulders that almost amounted to slouchiness, they gave a suggestion of latent strength that could be instantly galvanised into great power. When he moved, either to throw something for his dog or just to break the monotony of standing, his movements were slow and deliberate, and he took a long pace with a slight inclination towards the side, as is the habit of cavalrymen and sailors. His eyes were a clear, unsubtle blue, and though his skin was tanned from exposure to the elements, its texture was unspoiled. His hair was light brown, and, while closely cropped, in keeping with military tradition, was naturally of thick growth; in the centre where it was parted there was more than a tendency towards curls. From his lip a slight moustache was trained to point upwards at the ends, and beneath the tan of his face could be seen the glow of health, token of a decent mode of living and a life spent out of doors.

There was a frankness of countenance, a certain humour which one felt would rarely rise above banter, and the whole bearing was manly and attractive. But search the features as he would, Selwyn could not discover any lurking traces of undiscovered personality. Malcolm's very frankness seemed to rob him of possession of any hidden, unexpected vein of individuality. He was essentially a type, and of as clear Anglo-Saxon origin as if he were living in the days before his breed was modified by inter-association with other tribes.

Selwyn recalled the words of Mathews: 'Milord, you're a thoroughbred, you are.' This youth was of a race of thoroughbreds. Maternal heredity had skipped him altogether; he was a Durwent of Durwents, and heir to all the distinction and lack of distinction which marked the long line of that family.

And opposite him was an American whose two generations of Republican ancestry led to the paths of Dutch and Irish parentage. Selwyn had never tried to discover the cause why his paternal ancestor had left the Green Island, or his maternal ancestor the land of dikes and windmills; it was sufficient that, out of resentment against conditions either avoidable or unavoidable, each had resolved to endure the ordeal of making his way in a land of strangers. Austin Selwyn bore the marks of that inheritance no less clearly than Malcolm Durwent bore the marks of his. In his features there was a certain repose, as became the part-son of a race that had produced the art of Rembrandt, but there was a roving Celtic strain as well that hid itself by turn in his eyes, in his lips, in his smile, in the lines of his frown. In contrast to the clear Saxon steadiness of Malcolm Durwent, his own face was constantly touched by lights and shadows of his mind, lit by the incessant prompting of his thoughts that demanded their answer to the riddle of life.

Although his build was fairly powerful, Selwyn's well-knit shoulders and alert movements of body spoke of a physique that was always tuned to pitch, but one missed the impression of limitless endurance which lay behind the easy carelessness of Malcolm Durwent's pose.

'I want to ask you, Durwent,' said the American, 'more from the stand-point of a writer than anything else, if these men of yours who are going out to fight are actuated by a great sense of patriotism, or a feeling that the liberty of the world depends on them or—well, in other words, I am trying to discover what it is that makes you men face death as if it were a game.'

'My dear chap,' said the Englishman, with a slightly embarrassed smile, 'there again we leave it to the fellows higher up. Naturally, if Britain goes to war, it isn't up to her army to question it one way or another. Of course, back in our heads we like to feel that she is in the right—but, then, I don't think Britain would ever do the rotten thing; do you?'

'N—no, I suppose not.'

'You see, a chap can't help looking at it a bit like a game, for there's Belgium doing an absolutely sporting thing, and there isn't one of us that isn't straining at the bit to get over and give them a hand.'

With a slight blush at this admission of fervour, the Englishman grasped his collie-dog by the forepaws and rolled him on his back.

'But,' said Selwyn, unwilling to let the bone of discussion drop while there was one shred of knowledge clinging to it, 'supposing that Britain were in the wrong and you fellows knew it, yet you were ordered to war—what then?'

His companion laughed and thrust his hands in his pockets.

'Oh, we'd fight anyway; and after we had knocked the other chap out we'd tell him how sorry we were, then go back and hang the bounders who had brought the thing on. But then, you see, you're riding the wrong horse, because soldiering's my job, and I was always an awful muff when it came to jawing on matters I don't know anything about. You had better get hold of some of our politician johnnies; they've always got ideas on things.'

V.

A little later the Honourable Malcolm Durwent left Roselawn in a motor-car.

As it rounded the curve in the drive he turned and waved at the little group who were standing in the courtyard, and then he was lost to sight. And in the hearts of each of the three there was a poignant grief. Lord Durwent's head was bowed with regret that at Britain's call he had been able to give one only of his two sons. Dry-eyed, but with aching heart, Elise stood with an overwhelming remorse that she had never really known her elder brother. And Lady Durwent, free of all theatricalism, was dumb with the mother's pain of losing her first-born.

And as the heir to Roselawn went to war, so did the sons of every old family in the Island Kingdom. In something of the spirit of sport, yet carrying beneath their cheeriness the high purpose of ageless chivalry, the blue-eyed youth of Britain went out with a smile upon their lips to play their little parts in the great jest of the gods.

Not with the cry of 'Liberty!' or 'Freedom!' but merely as heirs to British traditions, they took the field. Of a race that acts more on instinct than on reason, they were true to their vision of Britain, and asking no better fate than to die in her service, they helped to stem the Prussian flood while home after home, in its ivy-covered seclusion, learned that the last son, like his brothers, had 'played the game' to a finish.

Let the men who cry for the remodelling of Britain—and progress must have an unimpeded channel—let them try to bring to their minds the Britain that men saw in August 1914, when catastrophe yawned in her path. That picture holds the secret for the Great Britain of the future.

VI.

It was almost the last day in August, when the little British Army was fighting desperately against unthinkable odds, that a brigade of cavalry made a brave but futile charge to try to break the German grip. The —th Hussars was one of the regiments that took part, and only a remnant returned.

Staring with fixed, unseeing eyes at the blue of the sky, which was not unlike the colour of his eyes, the Honourable Malcolm Durwent lay on the field of battle, with a bullet through his heart.



CHAPTER XIII.

THE MAN OF SOLITUDE.

I.

In a large room overlooking St. James's Square a man sat writing. In the shaded light his face showed haggard, and his eyes gleamed with the brilliancy of one whose blood is lit with a fever.

The clocks had just struck nine when he paused in his work, and crossing to the French windows, which opened on a little terrace, looked out at the darkened square. The restless music of London's life played on his tired pulses. He heard the purring of limousines gliding into Pall Mall, and the vibrato of taxi-cabs whipped into action by the piercing blast of club-porters' whistles. The noise of horses' hoofs on the pavement echoed among the roof-tops of the houses, and beneath those outstanding sounds was the quiet staccato of endless passing feet, losing itself in the murmur of the November wind as it searched among the dead leaves lying in the little park.

He had remained there only a few minutes, when, as though he had lost too much time already, the writer returned to the table and resumed his pen.

There was a knock at the door, and he looked up with a start. 'Come in,' he said; and a man-servant entered.

'Will you be wanting anything, Mr. Selwyn?'

'No, Smith.'

'You haven't been out to dinner, sir.'

'I am not hungry.'

'Better let me make you a cup of tea with some toast, and perhaps boil an egg.'

'N—no, thanks, Smith. Well, perhaps you might make some coffee, with a little buttered toast, and just leave them here.'

'Very good, sir.'

Although less than a year had elapsed since Austin Selwyn had first dined at Lady Durwent's home, experience, which is more cruel than time, had marked him as a decade of ordinary life could not have done. His mind had been subjected to a burning ordeal since summer, and his drawn features and shadowed eyes showed the signs of inward conflict.

As he had said of himself, all his previous experiences and education were but a novitiate in preparation for the great moment when truth challenged his consciousness and illuminated a path for him to follow. From an intellectual dilettante, a connoisseur of the many fruits which grace life's highway, he had become a single-purposed man aflame with burning idealism. From the sources of heredity the spirit of the Netherlands fighting against the yoke of Spain, and the instinct of revolt which lies in every Celtic breast, flowed and mingled with his own newly awakened passion for world-freedom.

He had left Roselawn with a formal good-bye taken of the whole family together. He had avoided the eyes of Elise, and she had made no attempt to alter the impersonal nature of the parting. Reaching London, he had been offered these rooms in St. James's Square by an American, resident in London, whose business compelled him to go to New York for an indefinite period. As Selwyn felt the need for absolute aloofness, he had gladly accepted.

Hardly waiting to unpack his 'grips,' he at once began his battle of the written word, his crusade against the origin and the fruits of Ignorance as shown by the war.

Always a writer of sure technique and facile vocabulary, he let the intensity of his spirit focus on the subject. He knew that to make his voice heard above the clamour of war his language must have the transcendent quality of inspiration. No composer searching for the motif of a great moving theme ever approached his instrument with deeper emotional artistry than Selwyn brought to bear on the language which was to ring out his message.

He felt that words were potential jewels which, when once the rays of his mind had played upon them, would be lit with the fire of magic. Words of destiny like blood-hued rubies; words fraught with ominous opal warning; words that glittered with the biting brilliance of diamonds—they were his to link together with thought: he was their master. The necromancy of language was his to conjure with.

Day after day, and into the long hours of the night, he wrote, destroying pages as he read them, refining, changing, rewriting, always striving for results which would show no signs of construction, but only breathe with life. When fatigue sounded its warnings he disregarded them, and spurred himself on with the thought of the thousands dying daily at the front. He saw no one. His former London acquaintances were engrossed in affairs of war, and made no attempt to seek him out. It was his custom to have breakfast and luncheon in his rooms; at dinner-time he would traverse the streets until he found some little-used restaurant, and then, selecting a deserted corner, would eat his meal alone. The walk there and back to his rooms was the only exercise he permitted himself, except occasionally, when, late at night, cramped fingers and bloodshot eyes would no longer obey the lashing of the will, and he would venture out for an hour's stroll through night-shrouded London.

Prowling about from square to square, through deserted alleys, and by slumbering parks, he would feel the cumulative destinies of the millions of sleeping souls bearing on his consciousness. Solitude in a metropolis, unlike that of the country, which merely lulls or tends to the purifying of thought, intensifies the moods of a man like strong liquor. He who lives alone among millions courts all the mad fancies that his brain is heir to. Insanity, perversion, incoherent idealism, fanaticism—these are the offspring of unnatural detachment from one's fellows, and in turn give birth to the black moods of revolt against each and every thing that is.

Living as he did in a sort of ecstasy by reason of his suddenly realised world-citizenship, Selwyn's incipient feeling of godlikeness developed still further under the spell of isolation. The fact that he trod the realm of thought, while all around him men and women grappled with the problems of war, only accentuated this condition of mind.

He suffered—that was true. He missed the companionship of kindred spirits, and sometimes his memory would play truant, recalling the pleasant glitter of sterling silver and conversational electroplate which accompanied his former London dinner-parties. He did not dare to think of Elise at all. She was the intoxicating climax of his past life. She was the blending of his life's melodies into a brief, tender nocturne of love that his heart would never hear again.

In place of all that, he had the spiritual vanity of martyrdom. Few voyagers but have felt the exultation of mid-ocean: that desire of the soul to leap the distance to the skies and claim its kinship to the stars. It comes to men on the Canadian prairies; it throbs in one's blood when the summit of a mountain is reached; it is borne on the wings of the twilight harmonies in a lonely forest.

Unknown to himself, perhaps, that was Selwyn's compensation. From his hermit's seclusion in the great metropolis he felt the thrill of one who challenges the gods.

II.

His man-servant had hardly left the room when the bell in the front hall rang, and Smith reappeared to announce a visitor.

'Who is it?' asked Selwyn.

'A Mr. Watson, sir.'

'I wonder if it can be Doug Watson of Cambridge. Bring him right up.'

A moment later a young man entered the cosily shaded room, and they met with the hearty hand-clasp and the sincere good-feeling which come when a man who is abroad meets a friend who is a fellow-countryman. The new-comer was younger than Selwyn, and though of lighter complexion and hair, was unmistakably American in appearance. Like the author, he was clean-shaven, but there was more repose in the features. His face was broad, and in the poise of his head and thick neck there was the clear impression of great physical and mental driving-power. Although still a student, the mark of the engineer was strongly stamped on him. He was of the type that spans a great river with a bridge; that glories in the overcoming of obstacles by sheer domination of will.

'Well, Doug,' said Selwyn as they drew their chairs up to the fire, 'when did you leave Cambridge?'

'Last week,' said the other. 'I couldn't stand it any longer with every one gone. I don't think that one of the bunch I played around with is there now.'

'That was a bully week-end I had with you at the university.'

'We sure had a good time, didn't we?'

'But how did you know I was here?'

'Jarvis sent me a note that he and his wife were running hack to New York, and that you were taking his rooms. Damn fine place, isn't it? There's a woman's touch all over here. But you're looking precious seedy.'

'I feel all right.'

'You don't look it.'

'I have been very busy, Doug.'

'Glad to hear it. Putting over a killing in the literature game?'

'The biggest thing yet,' said Selwyn, opening a drawer and searching for the cigars. 'I am making a sincere attempt to write something which will sway people. Have one of these?'

'Thanks. I guess I'd better smoke one while I have the chance. It might get the sergeant-major's goat if he found a buck private smoking half-crown cigars.'

'You haven't joined the army?'

'Not yet; but I shall to-morrow. You can do it by graft, old boy. For three weeks I've courted a colonel's daughter so as to get next to the old man, and to-morrow I receive my reward. I am to become a full-fledged Tommy Atkins.'

'And the daughter?'

The younger man grinned and cut off the end of his cigar with a pocket-knife. 'Can you see the colonel's daughter "walking out" with a Tommy? My dear Austin, patriotism excuses much, but the social code must be maintained. I'd render that in Latin if I wasn't so rusty on languages. What are the chances of your coming along with me tomorrow?'

Selwyn reached for an ash-tray and matches.

'America is neutral,' he said quietly.

'America is not neutral,' replied Watson with a decisiveness that one would hardly have suspected to lie beneath the calm exterior and the veneer of good-breeding polished by Cambridge associations—a veneer that made his occasional lapses into crudity of language seem oddly out of place. 'The German-Americans, the Irish-Americans, the Jewish-Americans, the God-knows-who-else-Americans may be neutral, but the America of Washington and Lincoln, the America of Lee and Grant, isn't neutral. Not by a long sight.'

'Doug,' said Selwyn reproachfully, 'you are the last man I thought would be caught by this flag-waving, drum-beating stuff.'

The younger man's brows puckered as he looked through the haze of tobacco-smoke at his host. 'Austin,' he said abruptly, 'you've changed.'

'Yes,' said Selwyn thoughtfully. He was going to say more, but, changing his mind, remained silent.

'I thought you looked different,' went on Watson. 'What's up?'

Selwyn's eyes narrowed and his lips and jaw stiffened resolutely. 'I am writing,' he said, enunciating each word distinctly, 'in the hope of arousing the slumbering conscience of the world against this war.'

'Canute the Second,' commented Watson dryly.

'Doug,' said the other, frowning, 'I deserve better than sarcasm from you.'

'I'm sorry,' said Watson with a laugh, 'but I can't just get this new Austin Selwyn right off the bat. Of course war is wrong—any boob knows that—but what can you hope to do with writing about it?'

Selwyn rose to his feet, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, strode up and down the room. 'What can I hope to do?' he said. 'Remove the scales from the eyes of the blind; recall to life the spirit of universal brotherhood; destroy ignorance instead of destroying life.'

'Some platform!' said Watson, making rings of tobacco-smoke.

'Take yourself, for example,' said Selwyn vehemently, pausing in his walk and pointing towards the younger man. 'You are a man of international experience and university education. On the surface you have the attributes of a man of thought. You are one that the world has a right to expect will take the correct stand on great human questions. Yet the moment the barriers are down and jingoism floods the earth you give up without a struggle and join the great mass of the world's driftwood.'

'H'm,' mused Watson, 'so that's your tack, eh?'

'I tell you, Doug, you have no right to fight in this war.'

'Thanks.'

'You should have the courage to keep out of it. Even assuming that Germany is wholly in the wrong and Britain completely in the right, can't you see that when the Kaiser and his advisers said, "Let there be war," you and I and the millions of men in every country who believe in justice and Christianity should have risen up and answered, "You shall not have war"?'

Watson rose to his feet, and crossing to the fireplace, flicked the ash from his cigar, and leaned lazily against the stone shelf. 'You're a member of the Royal Automobile Club, aren't you?' he drawled.

Selwyn nodded and resumed his nervous walk.

'Take my advice, Austin. Every time you feel that kind of dope mounting to your head, trot across the road to the club and have a swim in their tank. You'd be surprised how it would bring you down to earth.'

'You talk like a child,' said Selwyn angrily.

'Well,' retorted the other, 'that's better than talking like an old woman.'

With an impatient movement of his shoulders the younger man left the fireplace, and walking over to the piano, picked up a Hawaiian ukulele which had been left there by Mrs. Jarvis. Getting the pitch from the piano, while Selwyn continued his restless march up and down the room, he studiously occupied himself with tuning the instrument, then strummed a few chords with his fingers.

'Sorry not to fit in with your peace-brother-peace stuff,' said Watson amiably, strumming a recent rag-time melody with a certain amount of dexterity, 'but I always played you for a real white man at college.'

'Doug,' said Selwyn, stopping his walk and sitting on the arm of a big easy-chair, 'if there is a coward in this room, it's you.'

The haunting music of the ukulele was the only response.

'Here you are at Cambridge—an American,' went on Selwyn. 'Just because the set you know enlists with an accompaniment of tub-thumping'——

'That isn't the way the English do things,' said Watson without pausing in his playing.

'My dear fellow,' said Selwyn, 'don't let the pose of modesty fool you over here. They profess to hold up their hands in horror when we get hold of megaphones and roar about "The Star-Spangled Banner," but what of the phrases, "The Empire on which the sun never sets," "What we have we'll hold," "Mistress of the Seas"? Is there so much difference between the Kaiser's "Ich und Gott" and the Englishman's "God of our far-flung battle-line"? Jingoism! We're amateurs in America compared with the British—and you're caught by it all.'

'Nothing of the sort,' said Watson, putting down the ukulele. 'All I know is that Germany runs amuck and gives a mighty good imitation of hell let loose. I am not discounting the wonderful bravery of France and Belgium, but you know that the hope of everything lies right in this country here. Well, that's good enough for me. I'm a hundred per cent. American, but right now I'm willing to throw over my citizenship in the United States and join this Empire that's got the guts to go to war.'

'Listen, Doug,' said Selwyn, moving over to the younger man and placing his hands on his shoulders; 'can't you see that Germany is not the menace? She is only a symptom of it. War, not Germany, is the real enemy. I admire your pluck: my regret is that you are so blind. The whole world is turning murder loose; it is prostituting Christian civilisation to the war-lust—and you imagine that by slaughter Right may prevail. The tragic fallacy of the ages has been that men, instead of destroying evil, have destroyed each other. If every criminal in the world were executed, would crime end? Then, do you think the annihilation of this or that army will abolish war?'

'I haven't your gift of plausible argument,' said Watson, 'and I suppose that theoretically you are sound in everything you say. Yet, instinctively, I know that I am doing the right thing.'

'A woman's reasoning, Doug.' Selwyn relit his cigar, which had gone out. 'For a few days after the outbreak of war I will admit that I doubted, myself, and wondered if, after all, there was a universal heart-beat. Then came the news of the silent march of those thousands of women down Fifth Avenue, marching to the beat of muffled drums as a protest against war—not against Germany—higher than that. It was a symbol that the cry of Rachel for her children still rings through the centuries. It was the heart of America's women calling to the mothers of France, Germany, and Britain against this butchery of their sons.'

Selwyn sank into a chair, and a look of weariness succeeded the momentary flush of excitement.

'That ended my last doubt,' he went on quietly. 'I knew then that if I could summon the necessary language to express the vision I saw, my message would sound clear above the guns. I completed three articles—"A Fool There Was," "When Hell Laughed," and "Gods of Jingoism." I gave them to my London agent, but you would have thought they held germs of disease. He brought them back to me, and said that no one would dare to publish them in England. In other words, the English couldn't stand the truth. I sent them on to New York. This is my agent's reply.'

He took a letter from a file on the table and handed it to his guest. 'Read it,' he said.

With an inscrutable smile the Cambridge-American looked at the paper and read:

'NEW YORK, 10th October 1914.

DEAR MR. SELWYN,—You will be pleased to know that I have succeeded in placing your articles "When Hell Laughed," "A Fool There Was," and "Gods of Jingoism" with a prominent newspaper syndicate. The price paid was $800 each, and I herewith remit my cheque for $2160, having deducted the usual commission. I have every reason to believe that any further articles you send will meet with a ready market, especially if they follow along the same lines of exposing the utter futility of war. As a matter of fact, this syndicate is prepared to pay even a higher price if these articles, which will be published all over the United States, meet with the approval they confidently expect.