otesque clothes, torn
and unkempt--for practically none had had the opportunity of obtaining a
change of dress--their expressionless faces, their lustreless eyes,
their uncertain and bewildered walk, faintly reflected an experience
such as comes to few people in this world. The most noticeable thing
about these unfortunates was their lack of interest in their
surroundings; everything had apparently been reduced to a blank; the
fact that practically none made any reference to their ordeal, or could
be induced to discuss it, was a matter of common talk in London. And
something of this disposition now became noticeable in Page himself. He
wrote his dispatches to Washington in an abstracted mood; he went
through his duties almost with the detachment of a sleep-walker; like
the _Lusitania_ survivors, he could not talk much at that time about the
scenes that had taken place off the coast of Ireland. Yet there were
many indications that he was thinking about them, and his thoughts, as
his letters reveal, were concerned with more things than the tragedy
itself. He believed that his country was now face to face with its
destiny. What would Washington do?

Page had a characteristic way of thinking out his problems. He performed
his routine work at the Chancery in the daytime, but his really serious
thinking he did in his own room at night. The picture is still a vivid
one in the recollection of his family and his other intimates. Even at
this time Page's health was not good, yet he frequently spent the
evening at his office in Grosvenor Gardens, and when the long day's
labours were finished, he would walk rather wearily to his home at No. 6
Grosvenor Square. He would enter the house slowly--and his walk became
slower and more tired as the months went by--go up to his room and cross
to the fireplace, so apparently wrapped up in his own thoughts that he
hardly greeted members of his own family. A wood fire was kept burning
for him, winter and summer alike; Page would put on his dressing gown,
drop into a friendly chair, and sit there, doing nothing, reading
nothing, saying nothing--only thinking. Sometimes he would stay for an
hour; not infrequently he would remain till two, three, or four o'clock
in the morning; occasions were not unknown when his almost motionless
figure would be in this same place at daybreak. He never slept through
these nights, and he never even dozed; he was wide awake, and his mind
was silently working upon