"Shall you be long absent?"

"I cannot say with any certainty. There seems to be nothing further for
me to do in England at present. I feel that England has ceased to be the
pivot of the world. I am turning my attention to America, not without
sparing a side glance for the island kingdom of the Mikado. You know how
unobtrusive I am, Mario; I am taking no letter of introduction to
President Wilson, nor if I visit Japan shall I trouble official Tokio.
Mine is a lazy life, but not an idle one. I am an enthusiastic
onlooker."

Paul gazed at him reproachfully. "You never even warned me of your
projected journey, Thessaly. Do you leave all your friends with equally
slight regret?"

Thessaly gazed into the peculiar hat, and something in the pose of his
head transported Paul to the hills above Lower Charleswood, where,
backed by the curtain of a moving storm, he seemed to see Babylon Hall
framed in a rainbow which linked the crescent of the hills. "You
misjudge me," replied Thessaly. "What I have said is true, but I go in
response to a sudden and unforeseen summons. Death and a frail woman
have tricked me, and at one stroke have undone all that I had done. I am
compelled to go."

Paul detected in the deep voice a note of pathos, of defeat. "I am
sorry," he said simply. "I value your friendship."

"Friendship, Mario, is heaven's choicest gift. The love of woman is
sometimes wonderful, but it always rests upon a physical basis. The love
of a friend is the loftiest sentiment of which man is capable. Its only
parallel is the unselfish devotion of a dog to his master."

A servant came in with the refreshments which Paul had ordered. Directly
she had departed Thessaly began speaking again. "I have lived in
Germany, Mario, and in my younger student days--for I am perhaps an
older man than you imagine me to be--I have met those philosophers, or
some of them, to whom Germany owes a debt of hatred which cannot be
repaid even unto the third and fourth generation. I have lived in
France, and in many a sunset I have seen the blood that would drench her
fairest pastures. I have watched the coming of the storm, and I saw it
break upon the rocks of these inviolable islands. I thought that I knew
its portent; I thought that I had discerned the inner meaning of the
Day. Mario, I was wrong. Humanity has proved too obstinate."

He spoke with a suppressed vehemence that was startling. "The point of
this escapes me," said Paul, watching hi