both placed character above everything else as the first requisite of a statesman; both hated war, and looked forward to the time when more rational methods of conducting international relations would prevail.  Moreover, their purely personal qualities had drawn Sir Edward and Page closely together.  A common love of nature and of out-of-door life had made them akin; both loved trees, birds, flowers, and hedgerows; the same intellectual diversions and similar tastes in reading had strengthened the tie.  “I could never mention a book I liked that Mr. Page had not read and liked too,” Sir Edward Grey once remarked to the present writer, and the enthusiasm that both men felt for Wordsworth’s poetry in itself formed a strong bond of union.  The part that the American Ambassador had played in the repeal of the Panama discrimination had also made a great impression upon this British statesman—­a man to whom honour means more in international dealings than any other consideration.  “Mr. Page is one of the finest illustrations I have ever known,” Grey once said, “of the value of character in a public man.”  In their intercourse for the past year the two men had grown accustomed to disregard all pretense of diplomatic technique; their discussions had been straightforward man-to-man talks; there had been nothing suggestive of pose or finesse, and no attempts at cleverness—­merely an effort to get to the bottom of things and to discover a common meeting ground.  The Ambassador, moreover, represented a nation for which the Foreign Secretary had always entertained the highest respect and even affection, and he and Page could find no happier common meeting-ground than an effort to bring about the closest cooeperation between the two countries.  Sir Edward, far-seeing statesman that he was, had already appreciated, even amid the exciting and engrossing experiences through which he was then passing, the critical and almost determining part which the United States was destined to play in the war, and he had now sent for the American Ambassador because he believed that the President was entitled to a complete explanation of the momentous decision which Great Britain had just made.

The meeting took place at three o’clock on Tuesday afternoon, August 4th—­a fateful date in modern history.  The time represented the interval which elapsed between the transmission of the British ultimatum to Germany and the hour set for the German reply.  The place was that same historic room in the Foreign Office where so many interviews had already taken place and where so many were to take place in the next four years.  As Page came in, Sir Edward, a tall and worn and rather pallid figure, was standing against the mantelpiece; he greeted the Ambassador with a grave handshake and the two men sat down.  Overwrought the Foreign Secretary may have been, after the racking week which had just passed, but there was nothing flurried or excited in his manner; his whole bearing was calm and dignified, his speech