Moreover, he liked to see her casting her eye over the morning paper.  She did it with a manner as though she thought the terrestrial globe a great fool, and quite beyond the reach of advice.  And as though she understood and was rather amused at the way in which the newspaper people tried to keep back the real facts of the case from her.

And now she was scornfully entertained at the behaviour of everybody in the war crisis.

She confided various secrets of state to the elder of the younger Britlings—­preferably when his father was within earshot.

“None of these things they are saying about the war,” she said, “really matter in the slightest degree.  It is all about a spoilt carpet and nothing else in the world—­a madman and a spoilt carpet.  If people had paid the slightest attention to common sense none of this war would have happened.  The thing was perfectly well known.  He was a delicate child, difficult to rear and given to screaming fits.  Consequently he was never crossed, allowed to do everything.  Nobody but his grandmother had the slightest influence with him.  And she prevented him spoiling this carpet as completely as he wished to do.  The story is perfectly well known.  It was at Windsor—­at the age of eight.  After that he had but one thought:  war with England....

“Everybody seemed surprised,” she said suddenly at tea to Mr. Carmine.  “I at least am not surprised.  I am only surprised it did not come sooner.  If any one had asked me I could have told them, three years, five years ago.”

The day was one of flying rumours, Germany was said to have declared war on Italy, and to have invaded Holland as well as Belgium.

“They’ll declare war against the moon next!” said Aunt Wilshire.

“And send a lot of Zeppelins,” said the smallest boy.  “Herr Heinrich told us they can fly thousands of miles.”

“He will go on declaring war until there is nothing left to declare war against.  That is exactly what he has always done.  Once started he cannot desist.  Often he has had to be removed from the dinner-table for fear of injury. Now, it is ultimatums.”

She was much pleased by a headline in the Daily Express that streamed right across the page:  “The Mad Dog of Europe.”  Nothing else, she said, had come so near her feelings about the war.

“Mark my words,” said Aunt Wilshire in her most impressive tones.  “He is insane.  It will be proved to be so.  He will end his days in an asylum—­as a lunatic.  I have felt it myself for years and said so in private....  Knowing what I did....  To such friends as I could trust not to misunderstand me....  Now at least I can speak out.

“With his moustaches turned up!” exclaimed Aunt Wilshire after an interval of accumulation....  “They say he has completely lost the use of the joint in his left arm, he carries it stiff like a Punch and Judy—­and he wants to conquer Europe....  While his grandmother lived there was some one to keep him in order.  He stood in Awe of her.  He hated her, but he did not dare defy her.  Even his uncle had some influence.  Now, nothing restrains him.