“And the plan of campaign?”

“Austria and Italy,” the Prince continued slowly, “will easily keep Russia in check.  Germany will seize Belgium and rush through to Paris.  She will either impose her terms there or leave a second-class army to conclude the campaign.  There will be plenty of time for her then to turn back and fall in with her allies against Russia.”

“And England?” Anna asked.  “Supposing?”

The Prince tapped the table with his forefinger.

“Here,” he announced, “we conquer with diplomacy.  We have imbued the present Cabinet, even the Minister who is responsible for the army, with the idea that we stand for peace.  We shall seem to be the attacked party in this war.  We shall say to England—­’Remain neutral.  It is not your quarrel, and we will be capable of a great act of self-sacrifice.  We will withhold our fleet from bombarding the French towns.  England could do no more than deal with our fleet if she were at war.  She shall do the same without raising a finger.’  No country could refuse so sane and businesslike an offer, especially a country which will at once count upon its fingers how much it will save by not going to war.”

“And afterwards?”

The Prince shrugged his shoulders.  “Afterwards is inevitable.”

“Please go on,” she insisted.

“We shall occupy the whole of the coast from Antwerp to Havre.  The indemnity which France and Russia will pay us will make us the mightiest nation on earth.  We shall play with England as a cat with a mouse, and when the time comes....  Well, perhaps that will do,” the Prince concluded, smiling.

Anna was silent for several moments.

“I am a woman, you know,” she said simply, “and this sounds, in a way, terrible.  Yet for months I have felt it coming.”

“There is nothing terrible about it,” the Prince replied, “if you keep the great principles of progress always before you.  If a million or so of lives are sacrificed, the great Germany of the future, gathering under her wings the peoples of the world, will raise them to a pitch of culture and contentment and happiness which will more than atone for the sacrifices of to-day.  It is, after all, the future to which we must look.”

A telephone bell rang at the Prince’s elbow.  He listened for a moment and nodded.

“An urgent visitor demands a moment of my time,” he said, rising.

“I have taken already too much,” Anna declared, “but I felt it was time that I heard the truth.  They fence with me so in Berlin, and, believe me, Prince Herschfeld, in Vienna the Emperor is almost wholly ignorant of what is planned.”

The door was opened behind them.  The Prince turned around.  A young man had ushered in Herr Selingman.  For a moment the latter looked steadily at Anna.  Then he glanced at the Ambassador as though questioningly.

“You two must have met,” the Prince murmured.