Part 26 (1/2)
”I don't think I shall do that,” Hebblethwaite said, ”but honestly, Wyatt, I can't follow you in your war talk. We got over the Agadir trouble. We've got over a much worse one--the Balkan crisis. There isn't a single contentious question before us just now. The sky is almost clear.”
”Believe me,” Wyatt insisted earnestly, ”that's just the time to look for the thunderbolt. Can't you see that when Germany goes to war, it will be a war of conquest, the war which she has planned for all these years?
She'll choose her own time, and she'll make a _casus belli_, right enough, when the time comes. Of course, she'd have taken advantage of the position last year, but she simply wasn't ready. If you ask me, I believe she thinks herself now able to lick the whole of Europe. I am not at all sure, thanks to Busby and our last fifteen years' military administration, that she wouldn't have a good chance of doing it. Any way, I am not going to have my fleet cut down.”
”The country is prosperous,” Hebblethwaite acknowledged. ”We can afford the s.h.i.+ps.”
”Then look here, old chap,” Wyatt begged, ”I am not pleading for my own sake, but the country's. Keep your mouth shut. See what the next month or two brings. If there's trouble--well, I don't suppose I shall be jumped on then. If there isn't, and you want a victim, here I am. I disobeyed orders flagrantly. My resignation is in my desk at any moment.”
Hebblethwaite glanced at the clock.
”I am very hungry,” he said, ”and I have a long way to go for dinner.
We'll let it go at that, Wyatt. I'll try and keep things quiet for you.
If it comes out, well, you know the risk you run.”
”I know the bigger risk we are all running,” Wyatt declared, as he took a cigarette from an open box on the table by his side and turned towards the door. ”I'll manage the turtle soup now, with luck. You're a good fellow, Hebblethwaite. I know it goes against the grain with you, but, by Jove, you may be thankful for this some time!”
The Right Honourable John William Hebblethwaite took the hat from his footman, stepped into his car, and was driven rapidly away. He leaned back among the cus.h.i.+ons, more thoughtful than usual. There was a yellow moon in the sky, pale as yet. The streets were a tangled vortex of motorcars and taxies, all filled with men and women in evening dress. It was the height of a wonderful season. Everywhere was dominant the note of prosperity, gaiety, even splendour. The houses in Park Lane, flower-decked, displayed through their wide-flung windows a constant panorama of brilliantly-lit rooms. Every one was entertaining. In the Park on the other side were the usual crowd of earnest, hard-faced men and women, gathered in little groups around the orator of the moment.
Hebblethwaite felt a queer premonition that evening. A man of sanguine temperament, thoroughly contented with himself and his position, he seemed almost for the first time in his life, to have doubts, to look into the future, to feel the rumblings of an earthquake, the great dramatic cry of a nation in the throes of suffering. Had they been wise, all these years, to have legislated as though the old dangers by land and sea had pa.s.sed?--to have striven to make the people fat and prosperous, to have turned a deaf ear to every note of warning? Supposing the other thing were true! Supposing Norgate and Spencer Wyatt had found the truth!
What would history have to say then of this Government of which he was so proud? Would it be possible that they had brought the country to a great prosperity by destroying the very bulwarks of its security?
The car drew up with a jerk, and Hebblethwaite came back to earth.
Nevertheless, he promised himself, as he hastened across the pavement, that on the morrow he would pay a long-delayed visit to the War Office.
CHAPTER XXIII
Anna was seated, a few days later, with her dearest friend, the Princess of Thurm, in a corner of the royal enclosure at Ascot. For the first time since their arrival they found themselves alone. From underneath her parasol the Princess looked at her friend curiously.
”Anna,” she said, ”something has happened to you.”
”Perhaps, but explain yourself,” Anna replied composedly.
”It is so simple. There you sit in a Doucet gown, perfection as ever, from the aigrette in your hat to those delicately pointed shoes. You have been positively hunted by all the nicest men--once or twice, indeed, I felt myself neglected--and not a smile have I seen upon your lips. You go about, looking just a little beyond everything. What did you see, child, over the tops of the trees in the paddock, when Lord Wilton was trying so hard to entertain you?”
”An affair of moods, I imagine,” Anna declared. ”Somehow I don't feel quite in the humour for Ascot to-day. To be quite frank,” she went on, turning her head slowly, ”I rather wonder that you do, Mildred.”
The Princess raised her eyebrows.
”Why not? Everything, so far as I am concerned, is _couleur de rose_.
Madame Blanche declared yesterday that my complexion would last for twenty years. I found a dozen of the most adorable hats in Paris. The artist who designs my frocks was positively inspired the last time I sat to him. I am going to see Maurice in a few weeks, and meanwhile I have several new flirtations which interest me amazingly. As for you, my child, one would imagine that you had lost your taste for all frivolity.
You are as cold as granite. Be careful, dear. The men of to-day, in this country, at any rate, are spoilt. Sometimes they are even uncourtier-like enough to accept a woman's refusal.”
”Well,” Anna observed, smiling faintly, ”even a lifetime at Court has not taught me to dissimulate. I am heavy-hearted, Mildred. You wondered what I was looking at when I gazed over those green trees under which all those happy people were walking. I was looking out across the North Sea.
I was looking through Belgium to Paris. I saw a vast curtain roll up, and everything beyond it was a blood-stained panorama.”
A shade rested for a moment on her companion's fair face. She shrugged her shoulders.