“Poor Franz!” Her voice was the same rich contralto whose promise had routed the Howland millions years ago.  “Our poor gallant men!  When will this terrible war finish?”

“Ask your United States of America!” And he cursed that superfluous nation roundly.  “We had some chance before.  Not so much, but still some.  Now we shall be beaten to our knees, stamped into the dust, straight down to hell.”  He threw himself into a chair and pressed his hands against his face.

“But when?” Gisela watched him warily.  If these were tactics they were admirable; but who more full of theatric devices than the Kaiser he adored?

“Years hence, no doubt—­if we continue to hold the Social-Democrats in hand and drug the people.  We’ll fight on until our enemies’ might proves that they are right and we were fools.  That is all there is to war.”

Gisela sat down and let her hands fall into her lap with a little pathetic motion of weakness.  “Sometimes I wish the Socialists were strong enough to win and end it all,” she said plaintively.

“Oh, no, you don’t.  You are a junker, for all your independent notions, and trying to put some of your own nerve into the women.  I read you with great amusement before the war.  But no one knows better than yourself that the triumph of democracy in Germany would mean the end of us.”

“I cannot see that we are enjoying many privileges at present—­unless it be the privilege to lie rather than be lied to.  And when our enemies do win we shall be pried out, root and branch.  So, why not save our skins at all events?  I do not mean mine, of course—­nor, for that matter, am I thinking of our class; but of the hundreds of thousands of our dear young men who might be spared—­”

“Better die and have done with it.  And there is always hope—­”

“Hope?”

“Oh—­in the separate peace, the ultimate submersible, some new invention—­the miracle that has come to the rescue more than once in history.  There are times when my faith in the destiny of Germany to dominate the world is so great that I cannot believe it possible for her to fail—­in spite of everything, everything!  And everything is against us!  I never realized it until I lay there in the hospital.  I was too busy before, and that was my first serious wound.  Oh, God! what fools we were.  What rotten diplomacy.  Even I despised the United States; but as I lay there in Berlin their irresistible almighty power seemed to pass before me in a procession that nearly destroyed my reason.  I knew the country well enough, but I would not see.”

“They are a very soft-hearted people and would let us down agreeably if the Social-Democrats overturned the House of Hohenzollern and stretched out the imploring hand of a young Republic—­”

“No!  No!  A thousand times rather die to the last man than be beaten within.  That would be the one insupportable humiliation. Canaille!” He spat out the word.  “I refuse to recognize their existence—­”