merely a defensive Teutonic ideal, just as our oppressive standing army was a necessity owing to our geographical position.  My brother Karl said once—­it comes back to me, although I had quite forgotten it—­that it was futile for the military caste to try to work up a war, because every moneyed man in the Empire—­financiers, merchants, manufacturers, all the rest—­never would hear of it.  The country was too prosperous.  Our wealth was growing at a pace which even the United States could not rival, and poverty was practically eliminated.  That is the reason no hint made any impression on me.  It seemed to me that we were the most fortunate and advanced nation in Europe and had only to wait for our kultur to pervade the earth.

“But—­after Agadir—­I seem to look back upon a slowly rising tide, muttering, sullen, determined—­even in Bavaria the old serenity, the settled feeling, was gone—­war was discussed as a possibility less casually than of old—­”

“I recall a good deal more than that,” interrupted Mimi.  “Remember that I was the daughter of a manufacturer, and the wife, so-called, of a merchant.  They were always grinding their teeth—­and from about the time you speak of—­over the wrongs of Germany.  What the wrongs were I never could make out, and I am bound to say I did not listen very attentively, being absorbed in my own—­but it would seem that Germany being the greatest country in the world was somehow not being permitted to let the rest of the world find it out—­”

“It is all simple enough, now that I have the key.  Germany tried to bully France, and not only was France anxious to avoid war but Britain showed her teeth.  Germany was not then prepared to fight the world and was forced to compromise.  France gave her a slice of the Kongo in exchange for Germany’s consent to a French Protectorate in Morocco.  Of course—­after that it must have been evident to all the business brains of Germany that however great and prosperous the Empire might be she was not strong enough to dictate to Europe; nor presume to demand any more of the great prizes than she had already.

“In other words, she was shown her place.  It was also more than possible that her aggressive prosperity might one of these days excite the apprehension of Great Britain, who would then show more than her teeth.  Gradually the idea must have permeated, taken possession of the minds of men who had vast fortunes to increase or lose, that sooner or later they must fight for what they had and that it were better perhaps to strike first, at a moment they might choose themselves—­however little they might sympathize with the ambitions of the Pan-German Party for supreme power in Europe—­”