The retired army captain turned a monocle on him.  ’You have been in Germany, Mr. Selwyn?’

‘Yes, just recently.’

’Did you ever hear them toasting Der Tag?  My friend, it has arrived.—­Durwent, old boy, if you will excuse me, I think I shall go to town at noon.  If my old bones aren’t lying, the thing which a few of us fossils have been preaching to deaf ears has come to pass, and there may be a job for a belivered old devil like me yet.’

‘But,’ cried Lady Durwent, whose easily roused theatrical instinct gave her the delightful sensation of presiding at a meeting of the Cabinet, ‘what have we to do with Austria and Servia?’

‘Hear, hear,’ said the bland youth.  ’Let ’em hop aboard each other if they like.  I think it would be deucedly splendid for us to have another war; we’re all fed up—­aren’t we?—­with just enjoying ourselves.  But I don’t see how we can intrude into those blighters’ little show.’

‘Exactly,’ said Selwyn; ’it’s an isolated incident in European affairs.  In what possible way can it lead to a rupture between Britain and Germany, as Captain Fensome here predicts?’

The officer referred to shrugged his shoulders.  ‘It’s fairly simple,’ he said.  ’If, as I think, Germany is behind all this, Servia will appeal to Russia; and remember that the Great Bear is mother to all the Slavs.  There will, of course, be jockeying for position, bluff, bravado, and all the rest of it; but France is bound to act with Russia, and with all that explosive hanging around it will be strange if some spark doesn’t fall among it.’

‘But what has that to do with England?’

’Nothing and everything.  The greatest hope of maintaining peace lies with Great Britain.  If we had the army we should have, I don’t think there would be a war; but, thanks to our ostrich temperament, we are reduced to a handful of men and our action is robbed of everything but merely moral strength.’

‘But that is a tremendous factor,’ said Selwyn.

‘Yes,’ admitted the other dryly; ‘but I prefer guns.’

’Then you don’t think Britain powerful enough to steady the situation if it comes?’

’N-no.  Not unless’——­ The monocle dropped from the speaker’s eye, and with annoying coolness he paused to replace it.  ’Do you think America will swallow her doctrine and throw in her lot with us?’

Selwyn bit his lip to keep himself from too impetuous an answer.  For the first time he felt an envy for the cool imperturbability of the Island Race.

‘If you ask me,’ he said, ’whether America will plunge into war at the bidding of a group of diplomats who shuffle the nations like a pack of cards, then I say no.  If you older nations over here allow this thing to come to a crisis with a rattling of swords and “Hock der Kaiser!” and “Britannia Rules the Waves,” count us out.  But should the occasion arise when palpable injustice is being done, and the soul of Britain calls to the soul of America that Right must be maintained, then the Republic that was born—­if you will permit me to say so—­born out of its resentment against injustice will act instantly.’