Italy, Germany, and Austria.  Russia is an unknown force, but in my mind I see Austria and Italy, with perhaps one German army, holding her back for many months, perhaps indefinitely.  On the other hand, I see France overrun by the Germans very much as she was in 1870.  I adore the French, and I have little sympathy with the Germans, but as a fighting race I very reluctantly feel that I must admit the superiority of the Germans.  Very well, then.  With Ostend, Calais, Boulogne, and Havre seized by Germany, as they certainly would be, and turned into naval bases, do you still believe that England’s security would be wholly provided for by her fleet?”

Mr. Hebblethwaite smiled.

“Duchess,” he said, “sooner or later I felt quite sure that our conversation would draw near to the German bogey.  The picture you draw is menacing enough.  I look upon its probability as exactly on the same par as the overrunning of Europe by the yellow races.”

“You believe in the sincerity of Germany?” she asked.

“I do,” he admitted firmly.  “There is a military element in Germany which is to be regretted, but the Germans themselves are a splendid, cultured, and peace-loving people, who are seeking their future not at the point of the sword but in the counting-houses of the world.  If I fear the Germans, it is commercially, and from no other point of view.”

“I wish I could feel your confidence,” the Duchess sighed.

“I have myself recently returned from Berlin,” Mr. Hebblethwaite continued.  “Busby, as you know, has been many times an honoured guest there at their universities and in their great cities.  He has had every opportunity of probing the tendencies of the people.  His mind is absolutely and finally made up.  Not in all history has there ever existed a race freer from the lust of bloodthirsty conquest than the German people of to-day.”

Mr. Hebblethwaite concluded his sentence with some emphasis.  He felt that his words were carrying conviction.  Some of the conversation at their end of the table had been broken off to listen to his pronouncements.  At that moment his butler touched him upon the elbow.

“Mr. Bedells has just come up from the War Office, sir,” he announced.  “He is waiting outside.  In the meantime, he desired me to give you this.”

The butler, who had served an archbishop, and resented often his own presence in the establishment of a Radical Cabinet Minister, presented a small silver salver on which reposed a hastily twisted up piece of paper.  Mr. Hebblethwaite, with a little nod, unrolled it and glanced towards the Duchess, who bowed complacently.  With the smile still upon his lips, a confident light in his eyes, Mr. Hebblethwaite held out the crumpled piece of paper before him and read the hurriedly scrawled pencil lines: 

“Germany has declared war against Russia and presented an ultimatum to France.  I have other messages.”